The surrogate
It begins with a woman who yearns for a baby and another who is willing and able to give her one. You can imagine the motives of the prospective parents. But what about the woman willing to carry a baby, give birth and then walk away?
Friday Night Rewind It doesn't matter which team you cheer for. We've got video previews of every high school football program in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando County.
With patriotic fanfare, state lawmakers set aside $5-million in 2005 to help families of deployed Florida National Guard and Reserve troops facing financial difficulties.
But thus far, just $606,907 has been paid out to 172 citizen soldiers and their families.
In the last year, payments slowed to a trickle with just $128,000 paid to 32 families in need.
No news conference trumpeted what happened on July 1: Lawmakers took back most of the money, reducing the fund to a mere $400,000.
"That's tragic," said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, a nonprofit advocacy group in Washington. "Because the financial need is definitely still there."
State lawmakers and bureaucrats struggled to explain why the Florida Family Readiness Program never performed up to lofty expectations.
State Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, a co-sponsor of legislation creating the fund, acknowledged that lawmakers might have overestimated the amount of money troops and their families would need.
"Maybe we put too many dollars in there," said Fasano on Wednesday. "One of the things I wanted to be certain of when we created the program was that it wouldn't be underfunded. I didn't want one family turned away because of a lack of money."
He added: "We thought it was a great idea. Never did we think the money wouldn't be utilized."
The program allows families or troops to get financial help for a variety of things, from paying the mortgage to car repairs or buying groceries. They must demonstrate an inability to make payments themselves.
The payments can be made up to four months after the troops return from deployments in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Joe Negron, the former member of the House who helped create the program, thinks many people are just too proud to ask for help, equating the payments to charity.
"I've talked to families that asked for money, and they're almost apologetic that they had to ask for help," Negron said. "I know in my heart many families are simply too proud or self-reliant to ask for money. And I'm not sure there's anything we can do about that."
While Guard officials said they are confident they adequately informed their troops about the fund, state military leaders said they thought it almost impossible to get word out to all Reserve troops.
Glenn Sutphin, legislative director for the Florida Department of Military Affairs, which oversees the program with the Guard, said Reserve troops are stretched all over the map in many different units.
That makes it harder, he said, to inform them of the fund.
Guard leaders have met with Reserve officials to better communicate. But Sutphin said, "I just think there's an information glitch that's more prevalent with them."
Reserve officials could not be reached to comment. But a year ago, they said it was a myth that deployments caused financial hardships.
In fact, a RAND Corp. study found that reservists who weren't deployed suffered a wage drop more often than those who went overseas. That might be because of extra combat pay.
Since 2005, about 3,000 Florida Guard troops have deployed overseas, and about 700 troops are currently serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. No numbers are available for the Reserve.
Ron Tittle, a spokesman for the Guard, said Florida deployments have fallen in the last three years, something that led to a reduced reliance on the assistance fund.
In another year, Florida may have as many as 5,000 troops deployed, and if the financial need increases, lawmakers will undoubtedly approve more cash, Tittle said.
The federal government allocated $1.8-million in 2007 to pay the families of active duty troops who face financial hardships, a program separate from the Guard and Reserve fund.
"They spent it all in a heartbeat," said Sutphin, who said he didn't know why families of active duty troops demonstrated a greater financial need than their counterparts in the Guard and Reserve.
Sutphin said his department agreed with lawmakers to reduce the Guard and Reserve fund to $400,000.
"We didn't want to be greedy," Sutphin said. "It wouldn't have been fair to all the citizens of Florida to keep it."
For information about the Florida Family Readiness Program, call the Florida National Guard at 1-904-823-0360.
[Last modified: Jul 25, 2008 02:59 PM]
Comments on this article
by Marcus
Jul 25, 2008 2:59 PM
Too bad the information wasn't sent out to the Florida 211 helplines, a 24 hour helpline for human services. The information would be available to people who needed it and are calling daily. www.211florida.org
by Sam
Jul 25, 2008 2:24 PM
I feel that if a soldier is deployed in any capacity for his country then his mortgage payments and utility plus rent payments should be frozen and if the spouse cannot make the payments it must be against the law to move them or shut them off.
Subscribe to the Times
Click here for daily delivery
of the St. Petersburg Times.
News
