Orange County needs children’s group.
Grab the opportunity to invest in their future, make difference
This seems so right for Orange County.
Orange, in my estimation, ought to be Florida’s next county figuring out how to get a Children’s Services Council, focused on early intervention and prevention. It would speak directly to the future of the 16,000 children born each year in Orange County – and, indeed, all children.
What a difference it could make.
I give you my own county (Miami-Dade) as an example. We call ours The Children’s Trust, and we are among eight Children’s Services Councils (the others being Broward, Hillsborough, Martin, Okeechobee, Palm Beach, Pinellas and St. Lucie). We passed a half-mill property tax to do this in 2002 – and put a “sunset” on it that expired in 2008; that gave voters a real chance to decide if it truly made a difference and was worth their money. The first time we passed it with 67 percent of the vote. When it came up again in late August 2008, the Great Recession was on, with property values plummeting and financial institutions failing. You would guess this is a lousy time to have any tax on the ballot. But this time we passed it with 85.4 percent of the vote. I believe so strongly in the wisdom of the people, provided they have all the necessary information.
Today, accompanied by rapidly rising property values in my community, the owner of a median-assessed-value home, minus homestead exemption, pays just $41.87 a year. (It adds up to more than $100 million a year, a lot of money because we’re a big place with significant wealth and, to be sure, significant poverty as well. Orange County’s population is about half of Miami-Dade’s; in Orange County, a half-mill property tax would give you maybe $58 million to spend annually.)
In Miami-Dade, just this past year:
More than 33,000 children and youth benefited from highquality after-school, summer and enrichment programs.
94,000 students visited public school health clinics where they received first aid, medical assessments, diagnosis, treatment, counseling, dental and vision screenings, vaccines and referrals.
Almost 10,000 children with special needs enjoyed inclusive programs along typically developing peers.
More than a quarter-million books were distributed via our Read to Learn grade-level reading initiative. And much more. Orlando and Orange County represents the largest metropolitan area in Florida without a Children’s Services Council.
Just imagine how many children you could help to succeed in school and in life, how many more children could grow up prepared to hold good jobs, pay their fair share of society’s burdens, be able to buy cars and homes, and never face prosecution and prison. Every dollar a Children’s Service Council would invest in children would be overseen by an independent public-private board of Orange County citizens. Every dollar could only be spent in Orange County. Every decision would be based on data. All results would be measurable.
Lillian Katz, one of this nation’s great early childhood advocates and educators, would tell us this: “We must recognize that the welfare of our children is intimately linked to the welfare of all other people’s children. After all, when one of our children needs life-saving surgery, someone else’s child will be responsible. … The good life for our own children can be secured only if a good life is secured for all other people’s children.”
I believe in children, and I believe in the power of the people voting. What an opportunity stands before the people of Orange County.