It’s not just about the money
... when it comes to helping Central Florida children in need
All the money in the world, funneled through the hands of government, won’t fix the problems that plague children in Central Florida. When “more government money” is the only answer, you can be sure that nobody really knows what the real problems are or how to actually fix them. Unfortunately that is where the debate on helping children in our community has squarely landed: Give more money to government, and magically all the needs of our children will vanish.
The debate about how best to help children has been thrashed around for years. But in the past few weeks, the particulars have been sharpened by community leader Dick Batchelor and Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs. Let’s not lose sight of what this debate should be about:
Batchelor believes that a Children’s Trust, a citizen-led organization equipped with newly created resources, is desperately needed.
Jacobs believes that a Children’s Trust is unnecessary and illadvised to spend additional money. Instead, she has vowed to designate an additional $20 million in current taxpayer money toward the needs of children in our county.
Both these options seem good, on the face of it: One way or another, both plans would put more money toward children. That’s a win-win, right?
Wrong.
You see, the very aspect that Jacobs criticizes about a Children Trust — that it would an independent agency headed mostly by non-governmental appointees — is the very reason that a Children’s Trust is the best way forward.
A Children’s Trust would not just be another tool through which government spends more money. Instead, it would be an independent body that would do business differently on matters vital to our children. Frankly, it’s shocking that Jacobs, a professed fiscal conservative, who, by the way, is running to be elected Orange County School Board chair, doesn’t see the value of this type of government accountability on children’s funding. Her stance calls into question her objectivity and motives for opposing this approach.
Need a local example of how independent leadership can solve a community’s problems? Look no further than our effort to address homelessness.
In 2013, Orlando was ranked one of the worst communities in America on the issue. Just a few years later, however, we had reduced street homelessness by more than 50 percent. A miracle? No. We did it by inviting citizens from every sector of our community to develop a strategy. We empowered them to implement that strategy and fund much of it. We recruited the smartest, best and brightest from all walks of life to get involved. Together we discovered that we were spending millions of dollars each year on programs that didn’t work and that left people abandoned on the streets. Why? Because there was no accountability to make programs work. So together the community did what government alone could not and would not do:
We looked at homelessness objectively and created real change.
Ironically, in 2016, Jacobs called for an independent analysis of the county’s spending on homelessness, and the result of that investigation was that the county was wasting about 44 percent of its homeless funds (about $3.4 million).
To the mayor’s credit, changes were made. Her openness and accountability were the first steps in solving that problem. But she has apparently forgotten that this is common in programs controlled and funded by government. Elected officials often talk a good game when it comes to accountability, but changes often only occur when they are forced to make them.
I, like Jacobs, am a fiscal conservative. But when it comes to funding the needs of our children, I support Batchelor. But I support him because I know that money alone cannot change the lives of our children. More government money by itself can never solve the kinds of problems these kids face.
If the question of how best to help hurting children has taken us to a simple debate over more government spending alone — if that’s where we are – then we’ve missed the point altogether. If the only real outcome we can now expect is more government spending, we know that it will not ensure the future of our most precious community asset — our children.
A Children’s Trust isn’t just the right direction; it’s the only direction we should support.