This week marked an anniversary that many of us either celebrated or quietly let pass.

It was 365 days ago this past Monday when we were told to stay home unless our job was considered “essential.” Essential typically meant someone tirelessly working in a hospital intensive care unit, a first responder making sure our lives were safe, or someone working the front lines of a grocery store or pharmacy to keep our families fed and medicated. 

Over time, many of us adjusted to the changes, despite how drastic they might have seemed. But for tens of thousands of our neighbors in and around Sarasota County, the COVID-19 pandemic literally upended their lives, as businesses closed, jobs were lost and school was transformed. Whether they were striving to provide for their families, better themselves, or nurture others, these community members—through no fault of their own—suddenly found themselves in dire situations they never saw coming.

Like “Jessie,” a disabled, single mom who lived in a hotel room with her five children for nearly three months. Even when she found a place to move, Jessie couldn’t afford the security deposit and first month’s rent on top of the mounting hotel bill.

Or “Bill,” an older worker just settling into new a job a short bike ride from his apartment when the pandemic hit. Soon Bill was furloughed, along with hundreds of fellow team members, when Goodwill Manasota locations were forced to shutter. With no time off accrued yet, Bill wasn’t sure how he’d pay his rent or buy food and medicine.

And “June,” a foster mom caring for a girl who turned one during the pandemic. June said it was hard keeping her foster daughter home “with the same people, the same toys, and the same books day in and day out.” I can only imagine...

As a community leader, our role at Gulf Coast Community Foundation was to find a way to make sure the Jessies, Bills and Junes of our region got the help they needed to overcome those challenges. Thanks to the many donors at Gulf Coast and our friends at Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation, we have invested millions of dollars into COVID-19 relief. Our nonprofit partners responded with creativity and courage that has positively impacted thousands of lives.

For Jessie, Family Promise of South Sarasota County was able to cover that security deposit and first month’s rent for her family’s new home. The agency even sent a taxi to get them there because Jessie doesn’t drive. And after learning that the family had slept on the tile floor the first night because their belongings were still in storage, Family Promise bought air mattresses and bedding for them the next day.

After Goodwill Manasota had to furlough over three-quarters of its workforce, a grant helped the agency quickly hire back five GoodPartner Coaches. Normally these mentors help Goodwill staff plan and achieve financial and life goals. Now they served as navigators and counselors to help their furloughed colleagues access unemployment assistance, food, housing, and healthcare. Shirley was Bill’s coach, as well as his advocate, motivator, and friend. She helped him secure the benefits to which he was entitled until he could safely return to work.

The Safe Children Coalition knew that unanticipated needs would hit foster families hard. With a grant from our initiative, the agency supplied gift cards to every foster family in the 12th Judicial Circuit. June used hers to buy books with push buttons for songs, lullabies and animal sounds to nurture her foster daughter’s mind and spirit. “She loves them and has begun ‘dancing’ and perfecting her moves,” June told us.

Those are just three examples of thousands of stories that have played out in our community. The grit and compassion of our region’s nonprofits has been astounding. The heart shown by philanthropists has equaled it. The positive things we have learned and built will only help us moving forward. Even amid our forced separation, we have proven, once again, that we are better together.

Mark Pritchett is president and CEO of the Gulf Coast Community Foundation. 

To see a complete list of grants awarded from Gulf Coast and Barancik Foundation’s joint COVID-19 Response Initiative, go here.

We learned a lot from The Great Recession. A priority-driven budget process was one of those important lessons.  Local governments are beginning their budgeting processes now for their budgets effective Oct. 1. As the lessons from the recession fade, we find that the will to address policies through budget prioritization has faded as well.

Now, today, we are finding shortfalls for sudden unprioritized issues in some governments because they failed to budget and plan. Some governments are seeking more revenue sources for items or issues they never identified as a budget priority nor directed staff to prioritize in their budgeting process. They are starting with the premise of asking for additional revenues without ever having prioritized existing revenues or making the issue a part of their strategic plan.

Make no mistake about it, governments are getting more taxpayer money every year.  Property tax values are increasing ever year and have been for a decade, which means government gets additional funds every year with millage rates staying the same. Since they already do have more money every year, they need to tame the government budget beast before it gets out of control. There will be a time in the future when revenue contracts.

So what can be done? Go back to the lessons of the recession. 

In 2011, the Government Finance Officers Association put out a white paper during the worst of The Great Recession for government. It was called, Anatomy of a Priority-Driven Budget Process. This paper explains that governments typically use an “incremental” approach to government budgeting. “The current year’s budget becomes the basis for the next year’s spending plan.” It is based upon revenue growing and expenses being even.

A priority-based budget, however, takes into account large growing expenses and is a more business-like approach to budgeting. You can’t run government like a business, but you can apply business principles to government to make it more successful. This certainly is a business principle that is now largely absent from local government budgeting. 

The white paper explains, “The philosophy of priority-driven budgeting is that resources should be allocated according to how effectively a program or service achieves the goals and objectives that are of greatest value to the community.”

The white paper gives a step-by-step approach to budgeting with the following bullet point philosophy:

• Prioritize Services
• Do the Important Things Well
• Question Past Patterns of Spending
• Spend within the Organization’s Means- don’t use last year’s expenditures as a basis for decision-making
• Know the True Cost of Doing Business
• Provide Transparency of Community Priorities
• Provide Transparency of Service Impact
• Demand Accountability for Results

It makes sense to taxpayers to focus on results, but it is a government mindset shift to what is being done today as tax revenues continue to rise. This philosophy is uncomfortable for upper level government management as oversight kicks in and it shifts the power back to the people through their elected officials actually working on the budget themselves rather than just signing off on recommendations.  

The GFOA white paper concludes, “As your organization adapts to the new normal, the process will guide decision-makers in making resource allocations that fund the programs that are most highly valued by the organization and, more importantly, by the citizens who depend on those programs and services for their well being, comfort, and expected quality of life.”  The Argus Foundation hopes we see a shift back to funding articulated community priorities, with plans, within the current growing tax revenues.

Christine Robinson is Executive Director of The Argus Foundation. 

To view the GFOA white paper go here.

Our region’s nurses performed heroically throughout the past year when our community has never needed them more. They responded to the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic and shouldered the burden of long hours in the midst of a statewide nursing shortage.

To ensure the professional advancement of today’s nurses and develop the next generation of care givers, Florida’s public nursing educators must address how we educate our nurses and expand access to our programs. Our state has an effective public nursing education system, with the technical colleges, state colleges and universities each filling a role in a seamless pathway from entry level to advanced degrees:

• Technical Colleges – Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN), Medical Assistants (CNA)
• State Colleges – LPN to Registered Nurse (RN), RN, and the RN to Bachelor of Science Nursing
• Universities – traditional BSN, Master of Science Nursing and Doctor of Nursing Practice

The current system does not duplicate effort or award credit that does not transfer to the next educational level, but it provides limited on-ramps to the continuum of nursing education, limited mechanisms for acceleration, limited access to affordable high-quality programs and faces gaps in the pipeline that feed the next level of academic advancement.

The nursing shortage exists at every level – from CNAs to LPNs to RNs to nurses with advanced degrees needed to teach in the education continuum. A shortage anywhere in the nursing pipeline creates a shortage everywhere.

To address meeting the nursing demand in Florida, State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota, participated in a work group last spring with its Florida College System partners. Florida’s state colleges graduate more than 4,000 registered nurses each year. The working group developed the Integrated and Aligned Model to address the limitations of the current nursing education model while retaining vitally important seamless career pathways for students.

The IAM envisions a collaborative approach with district high schools, technical colleges and state colleges. The long-term solution to the nursing shortage is to create multiple opportunities for advancement within the field that will serve student aspirations, patient care needs and the need for nursing educators now and in the future.  

In partnership with high schools, state colleges could provide pre-nursing dual enrollment and college credit certificates to enhance student preparedness and accelerate entry into a registered nursing program by meeting prerequisites before graduating from high school. In partnership with a technical college, the state college could offer remediation, concurrent enrollment and college credit certificates to enhance preparedness and accelerate progression toward completing the ASN with the FCS institution while a student completes a health sciences career certificate at the technical college.

Co-located programs would support student progression and resource sharing by offering aligned programs in the same location. All these efforts lead to an ASN degree that is seamlessly transferable as nurses move through their careers.

The model offered by the technical colleges in proposed legislation this year offers a pathway for LPN students to become registered nurses but fails to retain the invaluable seamless transfer component and is a costly duplication of existing public options. Working together, technical and state colleges can develop pathways from other health science programs into the nursing profession, increasing the number of nurses at all levels.

For more information about SCF’s role in the IAM please contact Brian Thomas at 941-752-5392 or thomasb1@scf.edu.

The FCS Integrated and Aligned Model guides a collaborative effort to address Florida’s nursing shortage at all levels by expanding the best of what each institution offers to ensure the educational and career opportunities of our nurses and to preserve high quality healthcare for our community.

Dr. Carol Probstfeld is President of State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota. 

Health conscious dining in Lakewood Ranch. 

Click here to read the full article in SRQ's March 2021 edition.