Florida
Day care? For some Central Florida parents, it’s cheaper to not work. What help is available?
ORLANDO, Fla. – Probably no surprise to parents, but a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau shows rising child care costs may be forcing more people to make a tough choice: stay home or stay in the workforce?
Orange County mom Allyson Roth knows the importance of building connections with her young son. Like all kids, her son Maxwell’s brain will be 90% developed by age five. Roth also used to teach math in California, but when Maxwell was a baby, Allyson’s husband was transferred to Florida and she was hoping to teach in the Sunshine State.
“When we started looking at the salary and then tuition for childcare at the time, plus my student loan and then the other deductions that I was getting out of my paycheck, I was going to be in the hole $200,” said Roth.
Roth was shocked. As a result, she is now stitching together a new career. Roth is sewing from home to make ends meet.
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“There have been some studies even pre-pandemic that indicated that the cost of early learning care, so birth through five not yet in kindergarten care in the state of Florida, costs as much as a college degree,” said Jennifer Grant, the CEO of the Early Learning Coalition of Seminole County.
Grant says there are two programs in Florida to help lower costs. First, there are free voluntary pre-kindergarten, or VPK, programs for all 4-year-olds about to enter kindergarten. Florida provides 540 hours of free instructional care. To meet those state-mandated requirements, many VPK programs in the state offer 3 hours of free care a day Monday through Friday.
Florida also offers the School Readiness program, which subsidizes childcare for working parents who make no more than 150% below the federal poverty level. For a family of four, that’s $45,000 a year, but Grant says Florida’s rising minimum wage is forcing more families above that threshold.
“We have all kinds of coverage about saving for the cost of college. When your child is born, you hear about saving for the cost of higher education, but we don’t always coach families on the cost of having a child that is in diapers,” said Grant.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau shows how childcare prices have gone up in just the last five years. News 6 crunched the numbers and found that infant care at a center in Central Florida has gone up more than 17% since 2018. In some cases, accounting for more than 15% of a family’s income.
The most expensive county: Seminole at more than $12,000 a year per infant.
Many childcare centers are now having to charge more in order to pay and retain quality staff.
Here’s how that breaks down, county by county:
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Orange: $9,394 in 2018 to $11,058 in 2023, which represents 14.9 % of median family income
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Osceola: $8,811 in 2018 to $10,372 in 2023, which represents 16% of median family income
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Lake: $7,531 in 2018 to $8,864 in 2023, which represents 11.9% of median family income
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Seminole: $10,503 in 2018 to $12,363 in 2023, which represents $13.3% of median family income
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Volusia: $9,195 in 2018 to $10,823 in 2023, which represents 15.5% of median family income
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Flagler: $8,587 in 2018 to $10,108 in 2023, which represents 13.9% of median family income
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Brevard: $9,023 in 2018 to $10,620 in 2023, which represents 13.4% of median family income
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Marion: $8,130 in 2018 to $9,569 in 2023, which represents15.3% of median family income
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Polk: $8,022 in 2018 to $9,443 in 2023, which represents 14.3% of median family income
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Sumter: $8,720 in 2018 to $10,263 in 2023, which represents 13% of median family income
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Florida man allegedly dumped mother-of-four’s cremated remains alongside 500 pounds of trash on roadside
A Florida man allegedly dumped a mother-of-four’s cremated remains and 500 pounds of trash on the side of a road late last month, according to reports.
Daniel Rolando, 26, was arrested and charged with one felony count for littering over 500 pounds of commercial or hazardous waste after Charlotte County Sheriff deputies discovered a massive pile of trash in Punta Gorda on Oct. 30, ABC7 reported.
Among the heap of waste was a labeled bag with human ashes, according to the outlet.
The cremated remains belong to 39-year-old Nina Monica Brown, who died of sickle cell disease in 2024, Gulf Coast News Now reported.
“It was a straight box and plastic bag from the funeral home, like you would pick her up. It wasn’t even an urn, nothing,” resident Heather Lemcool told the outlet.
“Her name, day to day, date of birth, and date of death, and the funeral home was all on this, ID card attached to the ashes,” she said.
After sifting through the 120 cubic foot pile of trash, police found mail belonging to a woman in Sarasota and contacted her, the outlet said.
She positively identified 80% of the discarded items as hers and told deputies that she had recently had two of her units at a local storage facility auctioned off after defaulting on her contract, the outlet reported.
But the woman was dumbfounded as to how her mail and trash ended up on the side of the road and had no clue how the cremated remains wound up in the pile, according to the publication.
Employees at the storage unit then confirmed to police that Rolando had purchased the two units at the auction.
He was arrested after returning to the trash pile to clean up with a friend, the outlet reported.
Rolando later confessed to purchasing the goods and dumping the ones he didn’t want, according to the report.
Precious Tunstall, a friend of Brown, described the woman whose ashes were carelessly dumped as a “walking miracle” who battled sickle cell disease far longer than doctors predicted.
“As growing up, they didn’t expect her to live past the age of 21. She wasn’t supposed to,” Tunstall told Wink News.
“They told her that she would never bear children. She had four beautiful children, two girls, two boys, and she did everything that she had to do to provide for those babies,” she said.
She is currently working with the police to retrieve Brown’s remains and return them to her children.
“It was very inconsiderate of him to just dump her on the side of the road,” Tunstall said.
“I would like to have her ashes back, her remains back, so her children can have her remains.”
Rolando was released from jail on Thursday on $2,500 bond, the Venice Gondolier reported.
The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Florida
Kentucky owns Florida and Kroger Field again
The home crowd of Kentucky Football fans had forgotten what it felt like to celebrate in Lexington. As we all know too well, Kroger Field had become a place where visitors took over and Big Blue Nation left rivalry games before the final whistle.
But all of that finally changed on Saturday night when the Wildcats buried Florida, 38-7, snapping the 11-game home losing streak against conference opponents and Louisville. For the first time in more than two years, Lexington belonged to Kentucky again in a meaningful game.
A fun fact, it had been 2,247 days since Florida last won in Lexington, and Kentucky didn’t just protect that streak on Saturday night, it extended it to three straight wins over the Gators at home. And the third in a row was complete domination in the 2025 SEC home finale. Cutter Boley again played like the quarterback of Kentucky’s future, completing 18 of 23 passes for 168 yards and two touchdowns, while the defense suffocated Florida’s offense from the opening drive, with four takeaways. It could’ve been a shutout if not for the muffed punt early in the game, which set up Florida’s only red zone appearance.
This wasn’t the same Kentucky team that kept falling short in its own stadium game after game for the last two-plus seasons. The Wildcats played with confidence and had their way with Florida, running for 233 yards and outgaining the Gators 401-247 in total. It was the kind of night that hits the reset button on a struggling program, as Mark Stoops has strung together consecutive league wins with his back against the wall.
Unlike the last time Kentucky was at home, fans stayed and celebrated as the clock wound down for this one, then the fun continued into the parking lot and on into the night. It was great to see BBN happy again at home, especially against a logo team like Florida that had UK’s number for so many years.
4 out of 5 over the Gators
Stoops’ dominance over Florida isn’t just at home. He, of course, first snapped the decades-long streak in Gainesville in 2018, then won in the Swamp again in 2022. Overall, Kentucky has now won four of the last five meetings in a series that once felt impossible to flip. There’s a new streak in town.
Enjoy this one, BBN.
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