Proposed Children’s Trust stirs controversy

Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs says a campaign to levy a special tax for children’s services is using “misinformation” and “false statements,” while supporters claim the mayor is merely trying to delay a public discussion of the plan.

The battle over a proposed Children’s Trust of Orange County has moved largely to dueling emails in recent weeks as the window of opportunity to get the issue on the November ballot continues to narrow.

The Children’s Trust campaign wants a half-mill property-tax increase — $50 for every $100,000 in taxable property value, or $8 to $9 a month for the average homeowner — to raise $58 million a year for children’s programs, including those for youth who are abused, homeless or uninsured. But the Orange County Commission has to approve the initiative before it can be put on the ballot, and the county has yet to put it on its agenda for a vote.

“It is strange,” said Dick Batchelor, a longtime advocate on children’s issues and Democrat who is co-chairing the campaign with Republican Jacob Stuart, former president of the Orlando Chamber of Commerce. “By communicating through newsletters, it’s a way to circumvent a public discussion.”

Jacobs wrote to some 34,000

Orange County residents in a special e-newsletter May 7 that “there was a consensus that more work needed to be done before considering this request,” including evaluating whether the county could accomplish the same result without creating an independent council that wouldn’t be directly accountable to voters, which Jacobs opposes. She also challenged an analysis presented by the campaign that found a wide funding gap for children’s services, saying it contained “major errors.”

“Whether it is their intent or not, the inaccurate and outdated information has created the appearance of far greater financial needs,” she said in an interview Wednesday.

Jacobs also sent a second OC Connect newsletter this week after the Children’s Trust campaign filed a public-records request for the email list she used.

“It is likely that you will be receiving future unsolicited e-mails from him [Batchelor] related to their proposal to create a Children's Services Council and a countywide tax increase of 1⁄2 mil,” Jacobs wrote. “Given that there has been a lot of misinformation and erroneous data circulated on this issue, if you receive any e-mails from this organization and want to verify the accuracy, please contact my office.”

Batchelor confirmed Wednesday that his organization plans to send an email response to those on the list in the coming days, but he defended the campaign’s data — collected by University of Central Florida researcher Thomas Breyer — as accurate.

“We’re very comfortable with the data,” he said. “It’s very empirical. And, really, the issue is not about any singular piece of data … it is why, Madam Mayor, don’t you put it on the agenda to have a public discussion so we can explain these things?”

Meanwhile, the county has hired its own consultant to evaluate whether there are funding gaps for children’s programs, and Jacobs said she expects a “status update” during a budget work session on July 17, though there is still no vote scheduled on the topic.

“We’re frustrated,” Batchelor said. “Is it fair to ask these children … to wait on getting services? Is it fair not to have this public discussion? Even if you don’t support it, is it fair not to allow your colleagues to discuss it publicly?”

For her part, Jacobs said she is already looking for additional funding to bolster children’s services, and that doing so will be faster than creating an independent council.

Children’s trusts — sometimes called children’s councils — already exist in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Broward, MiamiDade, Palm Beach, Martin, Okeechobee and St. Lucie counties. Duval has a hybrid model that uses separate funding through the county but does not impose a separate tax.

In Orange, the trust would be run by a group of appointees, including someone from the Orange County Commission and another from the county’s school board.

Jacobs, who is term-limited as mayor, is running to chair the Orange County School Board.