Escambia County Commissioner Lumon May is questioning the grant review process used by the Escambia Children’s Trust and whether its dealing with the disparities in the community that the fund is supposed to remedy.
“I’m a little disappointed in the uniformity of the grants and how they were evaluated,” Commissioner May said on WCOA this morning. “We know the targeted population-the demographics of those who are most in need. We are not going to solve all of the problems of all of the children, but I’ve said publicly that those children who we used as the collateral material for the PR and those communities in those districts that were targeted, to get this tax passed were promised that we would put programs there, um, should certainly be first.”
He continued, “And I’m certainly concerned with the commitment of three years to out-of-school and youth programs that may not necessarily target those that it was intended for.”
Commissioner May didn’t know what training was given the grant committee or if any site visit had been done as part of the review of the proposals.
“I do understand that they were supposed to be training all along in the last year – training those respondents and training of the evaluators,” he said. He said the grant committee is composed of people recommended by the Trust’s staff.
Inweekly has questioned whether the Escambia County Sheriff’s request for a Virtual Reality Training simulator and a Real Time Crime Center fit the Trust’s mandate. Commissioner May said that he has told the staff recruited Sheriff Chip Simmons to make the proposal.
“The sheriff and I had a brief conversation, and all indicators to me was that he was petitioned to apply,” said the commissioner. “That probably will be a larger conversation on this evening.”
