TALLAHASSEE – The state of Florida will raid $700 million from the Lawton Chiles Endowment Fund today, taken in a short sighted move to plug a one-time hole in this year’s state budget. The endowment fund was created in 1999 to provide perpetual support for children’s programs, the elderly and cancer research – the withdrawal eliminates from $50 million to $100 million in annual investment income for the state.
This latest raid on the fund brings the total taken from the endowment to over $1 billion. In 2008, Gov. Charlie Crist convinced legislators and children’s advocates to allow a withdrawal of more than $350 million from the endowment to meet a budget shortfall, then surprised advocates with a second raid on the fund that led to today’s $700 million withdrawal.
“Ten years of failed fiscal policies has brought us to where we are today,” said Lawton “Bud” Chiles III, director of the Worst To First initiative, a statewide, grassroots movement with a simple message: Florida, the fourth largest state, consistently ranks near the bottom nationally on matters concerning children's well-being, in health care and in education.
“It’s a pretty sad day,” said U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a former Florida state Treasurer who now serves in the Senate seat once occupied by the late Lawton Chiles. “Years of unsound economic policies and fiscal mismanagement caused the Florida Legislature to bust open the kids’ piggy bank.”
The Lawton Chiles Foundation has joined with partners around the state to get organized in creating the Worst To First initiative. The real state of children is startling: 49th in uninsured children, 48th in the nation for juvenile crime, 50th in spending on education. Our indicators, which put Florida’s investment into perspective nationally, can be found at www.WorstToFirst.org.
“The culture in Tallahassee puts short term political gain over the long term future of our state. They cut investment in our future, and we will all pay the price later. Supporting kids with words is easy, but they need more than words. They need us to take action,” continued Chiles.
“Lawmakers in Tallahassee have sold our children’s future for an easy fix of cash one more time. If our Governor and the legislature won't lead, getting mad isn’t enough anymore. We will get organized,” said Chiles, who also serves as the president of a charitable foundation named after his late father, who served as Florida’s 41st governor.
As one of its first organizing efforts, Worst To First is establishing The Lawton Chiles Leadership Corps with a two-day conference on August 8-9th at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, bringing students from all over Florida together to get hands-on training and meet national, state and local leaders. More information on the Lawton Chiles Leadership Corps is available at www.WorstToFirst.org.
The Lawton Chiles Endowment Fund was created for the people of Florida in 1999 with money from Florida’s tobacco settlement. The funds were to provide a perpetual resource for enhanced funding of children’s health programs, child welfare programs, children’s health and human services initiatives, elder programs and biomedical research. The money was invested in order to generate income, and formerly produced from about $100 million to $50 million in state revenue annually.
# # #