Escambia Children’s Trust reports $25 million cash, board votes to file annual numbers for audit

The Escambia Children’s Trust board voted Oct. 14 to file its fiscal reports for audit after hearing a treasurer’s briefing showing roughly $25 million in the trust’s bank accounts and about $4 million available for new or unanticipated needs.

Treasurer Tammy Abrams told the board the packets cover activity through August 2025. ‘‘We have 23,000,000 in the bank and 4,000,000 of that is not obligated currently,’’ Abrams said, noting 83% of cash on hand is already obligated to contracts and grants. She also said the trust had paid more than $1 million in reimbursements to community providers for the first time in July.

The report breaks the organization’s spending into administrative and program functions. Abrams said the trust is running at about 7.37% administrative costs compared with a budgeted 5.94% and that program spending accounts for roughly 90% of outlays. She told the board the trust had collected 101% of the revenue budgeted and reiterated that the trust’s fiscal year runs Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.

Board members received a contracts schedule, an obligated-cash schedule, and two versions of the statement of revenues and expenses (combined and by function). Abrams said contract surrender and reallocation had been used to reassign roughly $5.37 million into CARES grants and other funding this cycle.

After questions and with no objections, a motion to file the treasurer’s report for audit passed by voice vote.

The filing will allow the auditor to review the trust’s books and will be part of normal fiscal-year closing procedures; the board did not adopt new budget policy or change appropriations at this meeting.

Ending: The trust’s staff said monthly packet updates and the contracts schedule will continue to show obligations and available cash as the year proceeds; the board saw the materials and approved filing for audit so the numbers can proceed through the auditor’s review process.