Escambia County Commission outside agency funding requests 2016

At a meeting this week, Escambia County Commissioners finalized the funding they will give to outside agencies for 2016.

Commissioners received $11.1 million in requests for funding from agencies that provide access to health care, kindergarten readiness programs, job creation and tourism development. Those metrics are among the 16 items in the Studer Community Institute’s Pensacola Metro Dashboard. The dashboard, developed with the University of West Florida, provides an at-a-glance look at the area’s growth, educational attainment, economic prospects, safety and civic life.

The approved list covers $8,109,732 in requests, including:

— Escambia Community Clinics, which provides primary care services to the un- and under-insured, and Early Learning Coalition of Escambia County, which manages the school readiness and voluntary prekindergarten programs in the county, both requested more funding than they received in 2015. Each will be funded at the same level in 2016.

— Visit Pensacola, which manages tourism promotion for the county, will receive $5,402,650 from bed tax collections in 2016, down slightly from the $5,668,232 they received in 2015. Visit Pensacola also will manage $125,000 for "microgrants" for small and community based events.

— Newly funded for 2016 will be BRACE — a community-based disaster preparedness group —with $75,000; Another Chance Transitional Service, a program to help ex-offenders reintegrate into the community, with $20,000; Pensacola Caring Heart, with $6,500.