The Children’s Services Council Report is Inaccurate

By Emily Fritz

The Children’s Services Council (CSC) released its “Impact Report” for years 2021 – 2024 at its September 18 meeting.  The report was distributed to the media, which ran several stories on it.

The statistics in the report are inaccurate. The numbers are not off by a small amount; they’re off by the thousands. CSC staff has acknowledged the data contains extensive duplicates, but they believe that’s acceptable. The incidence of duplicates was not disclosed in the report.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Leon County has 54,931 children under age 18. The CSC serves only a fraction of these children. However, the report states: “CSC Leon provided services to 126,399 children, youth, and families across Leon County.” If every child in Leon County was served by the CSC, and all their families participated, the numbers would be far less than 126,399.

The CSC also serves adults ages 19 – 24. I’ve asked staff how many participants fall into each age group but have not received a reply. The CSC statute specifies that services are to be provided to children. It does not say adults can receive services. Voters were not told the CSC would serve adults when it appeared on the ballot in 2020.

Here’s the kicker. Until August 2023, the CSC tracking system did not delete duplicates. If a family or child accessed four programs, they were counted four times. If they did this for two years, they were counted eight times. The CSC has contracted with 137 programs, so the opportunity for duplicates is enormous.

The report states that 70% of the recipients reside in zip codes 32303 and 32304. Only 12,646 children live in these two zip codes. If every child and family in these zip codes utilized CSC services, which is unlikely, the numbers are not even close to 88,479 (70% of 126,399.)

During the public comment section of the September 18 meeting, I questioned the numbers. When the item came up on the agenda, staff gave no explanation, and no Council members asked questions. It was approved on the consent agenda. Later in the meeting, Executive Director Cecka Green referred to my comments and said the report was for a four year period. She did not say that many people were counted multiple times.

The report could have been written in a less misleading way.  It would have also been clearer if the number of children and the number of families were listed as separate statistics.

I met with CSC staff and expressed my concerns. When I said the numbers were presented improperly, Ms. Green’s response was “Duly noted.”

They did say their current tracking system will eliminate duplicates in the future.

Leon County voters overwhelmingly approved the creation of a taxpayer funded Children’s Services Council in 2020. Since its inception, $30.8 million has been paid by local taxpayers when many are struggling to make ends meet. The public deserves reliable information. This report is clearly not that.