The Children’s Services Council Planning Committee will review a report on recommendations for the proposed Children’s Services Council of Leon County at its November 8th meeting. The report includes the organization’s vision, mission, goals, and priorities as determined by the Planning Committee.
The meeting will be held at the Tallahassee Community College Ghazvini Center for Healthcare Education located at 1528 Surgeons Drive from 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon.
If approved in 2020 by Leon County voters, the Children’s Services Council (CSC) will be funded by a property tax that could generate approximately $8 million specifically dedicated to services needed for the welfare of children in the county.
As stated in the report, the vision of the CSC is that “all children in Leon County enter school ready to learn, are successful in school, and become productive citizens.”
The CSC’s mission is to strategically support “evidence-based programs and services to improve the safety, health, and security of Leon County’s children and families.”
To identify priorities for the CSC, the Planning Committee started by assessing community needs, particularly needs that are unmet by existing programs. As noted in the report, in January 2019, the Committee reviewed County rankings as well as poll results on Leon County residents’ impressions of needs.
Throughout 2019, the Committee discussed the data, took input from community organizations, and reviewed draft priorities and goals.
The Committee then pinpointed three priority areas: “success in school and life,” “healthy children and families,” and “stable and nurturing families and communities.”
A key metric for “success in school and life” is the percentage of childcare programs designated as Gold Seal. The Gold Seal Quality Care program acknowledges child care facilities and family day care homes that have gone above the required minimum licensing standards and reflect quality in the level of care and supervision provided to children.
Approximately 12% of Leon County’s childcare programs are Gold Seal, compared with a state average of 28%.
According to the report, the goals in this priority area are increasing school readiness and decreasing juvenile crime.
In the second priority area, “healthy children and families,” the CSC’s main goals are enhancing both physical and mental health, including improving infant health and increasing mental resilience in children.
In the third priority area, “stable and nurturing families and communities,” goals are lowering arrest rates through job training and lowering food insecurity.
According to the report, Leon County’s food insecurity rate is 21.1%, compared to a 13.9% state average. To lower this rate, the CSC plans to provide year-round access to food to children in Leon County.
If the CSC is approved by Leon County voters in 2020, it will be guided by these recommended goals and priorities. The Planning Committee will take public input on the draft report at the November 8th meeting .
Planning Committee Chooses Top Priorities for Children’s Services Council added by Lexie Pitzen on
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Retirement is coming at a good time…. time to move out of this LEFT leaning county and city!! So sad that the majority of voters allow this crap to continue.
What ever happened to parenting? Taking responsibility? Unbelievable…
With due respects to all who buy into this nonsense… The three “priority” areas have nothing whatsoever to do with schools or the government. Neither is it the school’s, government’s, or taxpayer’s responsibility to address these areas. As always, the problems and any subsequent solutions rest solely in the hands of parents,family, personal responsibility, self reliance, et al… and/or the lack thereof.
Unfortunately, as a result of these well-meaning but misguided social/community programs – and the state and federal “matching” dollars that can come with them – many left-leaning local governments actually view Poverty as an Economic Model. Many of these social programs actually perpetuate the problem rather than help to solve them… by design. The bigger the problem, the bigger the state and federal funding windfall opportunity.
Exactly! That’s why the mayor and the city manager’s two new programs are not needed, not what city government is supposed to be doing, and pandering to the liberal demographics.
This is the way they promote themselves to win the liberal vote, but voters are smarter and the Red Wave is here.
The planning committee has not done a needs assessment but expects it to be done after the tax passes. I’ve never seen an organization decide to make a major investment without assessing the need prior to spending money. This is backwards.
Really? Never? ………. Does ….. “We have to Pass so we know what’s in it”…. Sound Familiar?
We’re not California yet…but we’re tryin.
Think about it folks.
This is typical leftist operational policy and procedure:
Eff things up so badly with liberal leftist Democrat wacko policys.
Then demand we throw money at the problem in an unaccountable process ripe with graft and corruption.
I urge you not to just vote NO.
VOTE #ELL NO!!!!
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!
Again, I will pay for your kids as soon as you start paying for my mortgage.
awesome. “If you can’t feed ’em don’t breed ’em”
ETHICS, Accountability, and Oversight should be the TOP THREE things on the list. As it stands NOW, they can Raise our Property Taxes as they wish for MORE Money. They do NOT have to account for how they SPEND that Money, and they can do what ever they want. Just Ask County Commissioner Brian Desloge, that’s why he was totally against it when it first came up. We do NOT need a Children’s Services Council with all the other Programs we have.
Where are the metrics for measuring success? I mean they are using clear stats to attempt to justify the need, so It should be pretty easy to set up goals that can be measured with improvement, Albeit by percentage numbers or raw data. For example, these monies should be able to move the number of gold seal childcare providers above 12%. AIf that percentage does not increase, where is the accountability to continue to put the dollars there? And for that matter what is success, 1%, 3% 10%? Are we seeking to be above or at the state average? Because in many cases we already are. This just seems to be another case of government not being able to measure success and failure, but continuing to just throw money at the problem .
Is Rocky Hanna on this committee? A man that actively hid from child support for 10 years. Please let the readers know if Rocky Hanna is on the committee dealing with child welfare.
Under state law, once a children’s services tax district is created, the school superintendent must be a member of the governing body. See section 125.901(1)(a), Florida Statutes.
Or we could just elect Steve Stewart to Leon County School Superintendent.
Steve will get to work on day one resolving 90% of the above issues.
Thus leaving a need of ONLY $800,000.00 for the Childern’s Services Council to set goals, priorities, mission, and vision on.
…just saying y’all…