What’s your concept of a good investment?

Is it getting more than you put in, even if you have to wait years to see the return? That’s what the financial managers and business bigwigs always tell us. Through the miracle of compound interest, $100 today can grow to $168 in 10 years at 6 percent.

Bruce Watson, executive director of the Early Learning Coalition, says his agency offers a 16-1 return rate. For every $1 invested in the early education of a children, you save $16 in social service spending down the line.

The thing is, you have to wait 18 years for the pay off.

The coalition manages locally the state programs that are aimed at improving kindergarten readiness, one of 16 metrics on the Studer Community Institute's Pensacola Metro Dashboard. Designed with the University of West Florida's Office for Economic Development and Engagement, the dashboard is a an at-a-glance look at the area's growth, educational attainment, economic prospects, safety and social well-being.

The dashboard's kindergarten readiness metric shows that 66.2 percent of Escambia County's 5-year-olds are ready for kindergarten.

The Coalition needs to raise $500,000 locally to maintain the federal and state funding stream of the $8 million budget used to run the school readiness program in Escambia County.

“I’m not asking you for the full $500,000,” said executive director Bruce Watson on Sept. 8.

Last year, the Escambia County Early Learning Coalition used $218,500 from the county to bring $3,496,000 into the community. It meant 1,000 children got subsidies for child care that helped their parents keep working and helped them become better prepared to start school.

Parent who don’t maintain their job lose the child care subsidy. Just the kind of stuff that ought to warm even a rock-ribbed conservative’s heart.

So where is the love for this ultimate form for workforce development from Pensacola’s business community?

Those words, essentially, came from good Republican Doug Underhill, who noted that in the current budget year, $70,573 of the coalition’s funding came from private sources.

“(I see) what a small portion of your budget comes from private sector when this one issue comes up in every discussion we have in Escambia County,” Underhill said during a Sept. 8 Escambia Commission meeting. “We know this is where we are losing our kids. It seems to me our business sector would look at this as workforce development 20 years down the road.”

Indeed.