Budget Committee - Regular Meeting

Since their score did get below the 85. Now also a facility might get a C if we had to close them because of an imminent health hazard, such as no electricity, no water, infestation of insects and rodents. So facilities might have to close. and they will get a C placard posted because of that closure. So if they come in and you see a C, that means the facility does have some problems and we are working with that facility to make the necessary corrections, but they do have to post that C. If they have corrected the violations that we saw in the routine inspection, then they could be eligible to get an A. Now, a facility that fails two routine inspections, of course, each of those inspections gives them a C placard, but if they do fail two routine inspections, then We have another placard, which would be the B placard.

If you're curious about any restaurant scores, there is a link on our website available to find that information.

Yes, a professional such as an architect or engineer or a property owner can apply for the permit without selecting a contractor. However, the permit won't be issued by our department until a licensed contractor is selected and verified. We can only issue permits to contractors who are licensed or verified property owners. So it's a good idea to have some research before applying for a permit and find a contractor who is licensed by searching online.

Hi, I'm Althea Jackson, the Director of Louisville Metro's Boards and Commissions. Today we're going to learn about one of our many Boards and Commissions.

The Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board is made up of stakeholders in Louisville who evaluate projects and ensure that those that are chosen will make the greatest impact on the Louisville community. We also work to evaluate programs and new and innovative ways to impact the lives of low to moderate income residents in Louisville, Kentucky.

Hi, I'm Kayla with Louisville Water. Welcome to Above the Dirt Garden Shop. We're here today to see how this amazing local business is using Louisville Pure Tap in their daily operations. We're honored to be at the heart of their local business. Let's head inside to learn more.

So I've been dreaming of being a crazy plant lady for years. And on the same day, my husband and I both drove by this empty gas station and thought, this could be it. This could be the plant store. And that night he came up with the name Above the Dirt and we've been here ever since. So I'm what I call an enthusiastic hobbyist when it comes to plants. This is intended to be a very safe place for everyone to learn together. Maybe we'll even Google it alongside you. So caring for plants comes to a few things. One, the best light possible, great water, and humidity. So making sure each plant, whether it's inside the store or outside in the lot, is getting the light, the water, and the humidity it desires to thrive. We use Louisville Pure Tap literally all day, every day. Whether it be our native plants, our house plants, the veggie garden that we grow here, we are watering one, two, maybe even three times daily and we use Pure Tap to do it. The quality of water that we have here in Louisville is actually a rather big deal because, you know, we're buddies with other plant stores around the country and not everybody is able to simply use their tap water. They have to do these crazy reverse osmosis things to just water their plants, where here I can just pick up a hose or a watering can. It's actually quite nice.

One minute Metro TV, one minute. Good afternoon and welcome to the July 23rd meeting of the Budget Committee. I'm the Vice Chair, Marcus Winkler, taking the place of the Chair, Councilman Cramer, who has an excused absence today. I'm currently joined in chambers by Councilman Joseph, Councilman Herndon, and online by Councilman Mulvey-Woolrich. and we expect multiple others to join us here momentarily. We're just joined by Councilwoman Parrish-Wright. The first item on today's agenda is a special discussion with representatives from Louisville's nonprofit sector. And so I will, do we, clerk, we don't have to call the item, right?

We're gonna have to read the item, yeah.

So, and it is titled, Louisville's Charitable Nonprofit Sector, Navigating Uncertainty, Strengthening Our Community. I will turn the floor over to you if you could introduce yourself for the record, and welcome, the floor is yours.

Great, thank you so much. I'm Layla Koshon, Director of Advocacy and Engagement with the Kentucky Nonprofit Network, also facilitate the Louisville Nonprofit Coalition.

And I am Mandy Simpson-Marler, Baldwin Consulting with K&N and the Louisville Nonprofit Coalition. Wonderful, so we'll jump right in.

So thank you so much for having us here today. It is our second opportunity to be before the budget committee to give you all an update about the nonprofit sector in Louisville. And we're gonna dive right in so we don't waste any time. This will be a very broad overview. We will touch on a number of issues broadly and from a really high level. But if there are things that you all here today that you want follow up on, we'd love to share that with you. We have lots of resources and links that would be overwhelming if I gave them all to you in advance. So those specific things that you wanna know more about, we have that and can follow up with you. So this is just our general overview of what we wanna cover today. We wanna make sure everybody is reminded on who we are as Kentucky Nonprofit Network. We go by KNN for short, who the Louisville Nonprofit Coalition is, what's the current Jefferson County data on 501 , which is charitable nonprofits, and then we're gonna cover some policies and some next steps. The Kentucky Nonprofit Network, we are a state association for charitable nonprofits, meaning we provide resources for them, time and money saving benefits. So for example, nonprofits need to have health insurance for their employees. We have a state association plan for that to help them be employers of choice. We also really focus on public policy. We do that on the local, state, and federal levels. And we really wanna highlight that we focus on, you can see this part in blue, the charitable nonprofits. There are lots of types of nonprofits. So sometimes you might see this word in the media, and it's assumed that it's the type of nonprofits we work with, but when you dig a little deeper, it might actually be a chamber of commerce that they're talking about, but they might reference it as nonprofit. So we wanna make sure that you all know when we're talking about who we work with and on behalf of, it's this specific type of nonprofit. We also wanna highlight that nonprofits impact everybody in Louisville. Well, everyone, I would just say everyone generally, but in Louisville specifically. And a couple of the things that we wanna really lift up here are that we are collaborative by design. I think a really good example of that is the Louisville Nonprofit Coalition ourselves. And I'll dive in a little bit more about who we are there, but we are an alliance of 35 nonprofits who are working together collaboratively excuse me, collaboratively for a unified voice on systems change. Especially with you all, many of you all have met with us, we appreciate that. And again, on the state and federal levels. We're also social entrepreneurs by design. Or let me back up, I had a couple more things I wanna add about this collaborative piece. Two more examples, we have a number of partnerships within our coalition. There's one that was previously together with Family and Children's Place, I know you all have heard from them in this past budget cycle, ECHO, Boys and Girls Club, as well as the Center for Women and Families. Together, those four organizations worked on a grant, it's wrapped up at this point, but it was to prevent violence in education of youth. So that's a really good example of where we see nonprofits, when there's an opportunity that fits and that they can all work together, they will do that. Another really great example is with Maryhurst. This is a metro government partnership with OVP and Maryhurst where they are trying to bring services, mental health services in particular, to people where they are in the community to reduce barriers. And in this, since 2025 to now, they've served over 4,700 individuals in Louisville. And that is, this is really putting these two, I wanna put two points together. The collaborative and being social entrepreneurs and finding ways to address issues and gaps that nonprofits, that's what we do. They were able to find a way to do that and to reduce these barriers. And so that's just really phenomenal, a great example of how this collaboration has worked and that they are being creative and innovative in finding solutions. So now I want to jump into some data. Every two years here at K&N, we do a report that's called More Than Charity. And what that is is it compiles the economic impact of this sector in Kentucky. It includes things like how many folks are employed at nonprofits, how many nonprofits are in the state, and how much money do we pump right back into the state. So we pulled out the Jefferson County data, because I know you all don't really, you don't wanna know about the other cities, so let's talk about Jefferson County. In our last report, we have over 1,000 501c3s with paid employees. So when you look at the general number of how many 501c3s there are, you're gonna see a larger number, but many of those are volunteer run. People are paying for it out of their own pockets to do the work. So this is how many we have with paid employees. That's almost 55,000 jobs at these organizations. That's almost 14% of our workforce here. And that's huge. If you all haven't really stepped back and think about the sector as an industry, we are an economic driver. Putting in $4.1 billion in annual wages and $15.1 billion in annual expenditures. And that's things like partnering with your grocery store, having vendors come for different needs. You might need paper for your printer. Those kinds of things that we're using our money of the organization to put back into other partners within the city. So here's our current membership list and Kind of backing up, we've been in existence since 2023 and we really started to address systems issues, right? And we wanna build better partnerships between nonprofits, find opportunities where it fits for the goals of Metro government and the nonprofits who are the experts on the ground. And we have a mix of nonprofits. It's not just human services organizations. I think that's really important to lift up. We have arts, we have Kentucky Waterways Alliance. So you're looking at this broad range of variety of folks who are impacting every aspect of how we live our lives and helping your neighbors when they have a need. And so we also break down the numbers of just our members. So I shared numbers of Jefferson County nonprofits generally, but this is just our membership. Our serving over 2.5 million people collectively annually. And you might think, well, how is that 2.5 million? We don't even have that many people in Jefferson County. It's because they're... reaching more people, right? Even duplicative. So the parks are serving X number of people and so are the other organizations. And our coalition alone has almost 10,000 employees and putting in $610 million in annual payroll and expenditures benefiting our community. Then we have this nice little dollar bill. And what we like to do as well is break down where does, or how are these nonprofits funded? And that's a really interesting thing to look at because sometimes we think about how nonprofits do a lot of fundraising, so we would think maybe their fundraising is 100% of their revenue. And for some that might be. But what our coalition averages are is 70% are program revenue, And fee for service on here is something like if we charge for a training, right? You get revenue for, you have membership fees. That would be your fee for service. And then government grants and contracts. This is the part that's really important to think about in relation to our partnerships together, nonprofits and Metro government. And that nonprofits are really putting forth I'm trying to think of the best way to say this that's not just saying that we need to work together because we're doing the work that reaches the goals that you all are working on, but also doing the things that are public services. They're things that government is responsible for or that government supports and puts in your goals and nonprofits on the ground are the experts doing that work day to day and this is a prime opportunity to lean on them so that you can get the work done that you need for your community and your constituents, as well as not have to reinvent the wheel, right? And nonprofits are also really efficient in what they do. So you have this opportunity to work with them and see that partnership opportunity.

Is everything down there?

So then we want to highlight a few of the ways that we have been working toward building our partnerships with you, collaboratively, as well as hearing back from you about what you want to see in the sector or what feedback, because sometimes you all are telling us, you know, when nonprofits come to us, we like this or we don't like that. And so we want to build these spaces and opportunities for you to connect with them. And so here are a few ways that we've been doing that with you all. i think someone's pointing out a picture right now councilman piagentini is on the screen he came to one of our meetings and so it's the picture on the top with the big group picture He's right in the middle. I see, yeah.

So we appreciate that.

And then we have some other pictures where we have, every year we do an advocacy training. And that is an opportunity for nonprofits in particular, but anyone could come. You all can come just to sit in and learn as well. And especially to know what we're telling them, because you might say, ooh, you said that. We don't really agree with that. This is what works better for us. And in fact, that's why we invite council members every year to our advocacy training. So we've had... Chair, Vice Chair Winkler and Councilwoman Parrish-Wright. And in advocacy training, we've also had Councilwoman Rui and Muldridge, Mulvey Muldridge, excuse me. Yes. I want to say your name backwards. I see you on the screen up there. But we appreciate you, all of you all, for pitching in your time and your expertise for that. But we'll be doing that again this year. So we do that again every year, and we want to make sure council members are there so that you can tell the attendees who are nonprofits what works for you in your office. right? How can they best tell you what they need, what the sector needs, and what you can actually do, right? They might ask you something that you don't have the power to do, and you say, oh, that's not me, you got to go to someone else. Or you might have some tips about how to apply for your NDF funds, and all of that's going to look different. So this is an opportunity for you all to share that with them, but as well for them to learn from you. We also hosted a council day, and we're going to do that again. And it was where we invited everybody to come and just meet with our members, and everybody had their own table, and then council members went around to talk to each of the organizations. We want to re-envision that. We did receive some feedback on what folks liked and what they didn't, because we always want to meet you all where you're at and what you think would be most effective to build those relationships. And so 2027, put a plug in, we're going to be inviting you all to a new event. And a few other things we've done we're really proud of on the first picture on the left is we, in late 2024, so when we testified in August of 2024 before this committee, we told you all we were doing this work where we were gathering information from local nonprofit leaders around what was their experience working with Metro government. And that's with council and the administration, with partnerships, funding, and any other way. And we did surveys and listening sessions. and had over 100 responses. And this, we have this report on our website. It's very brief, it's like less than 20 pages. But there were three themes that came out of that. The first theme is non-profit seat at the table, right? If we're making decisions that are impacting the non-profits who are serving folks on the ground, your constituents, they should be engaged in that decision making. Because they're doing the work, right? If it's issues that are impacting the work they're doing. Second was streamlining processes. We all know if you look at a grant and you're like, what? It's over burdensome requirement. You're getting $1,000 for 25 pages worth of grant application. It just doesn't line up. So some of the feedback was let's streamline some processes. And then the third top theme was strategic investment. And that means if we wanna address an issue as a government, how much money do we put towards that? And that is something that we're all still navigating because then you have to figure out how much something costs. And if so, for example, if we wanna end homelessness, this is a really large ask, but does that cost $10 million? Does that cost $50 million? And so once we have those numbers, we can really create a strategy and then have everybody at the table to help make those decisions. The other pictures I think are really important, I'm gonna highlight the middle one right now, is based on this report and just the feedback from the listening sessions and survey, we were like, well, clearly there's some room for nonprofits and Metro government to come together and share more information. So we partnered with the mayor's office and with Susan Durham's in the picture, and she's here today. We appreciate all the partnerships that they have worked with us on. And we put together a three-part series for nonprofits. And they were free. Folks could come. We had over 50 attendees in each session. And it was just like, who is, excuse me, who's Metro government? How do you know about what funding opportunities there are? How do you have better grant applications? How do you navigate the processes, right? How do you use AI? in your grant application. So just these wonderful, robust topics that we were able to offer, again for free, to any nonprofits that wanted to come. And we're doing two more this year, so I wanna flag that. So we are continuing to build on that. So if there are issues, and this is a good opportunity as well for you all, if you see something on your end and you're thinking nonprofits are really missing the ball on X and they need a training, you tell us and we'll try to figure out how to offer that to them. if we're not already doing it, because we might already be doing it. And then we've also invited the mayor to a meeting, so that's a picture of the Mayor Greenberg when he came and spoke to our group. And then the bottom picture is, I wanted to include, because we layer our local work with our state and federal work as well. And that's a picture when we had our state legislature come and talk to our, excuse me, our coalition. And so we try to do that at least once a year as well, and we invite all of the metro caucus of the state legislature. Anything? Okay. How much time do we have? All right, all right, so let's transition into some really important topics around federal funding and impacts that are trickling down from the federal down to Kentucky. And the way we wanna look at this is how much, well, this is just one way, because there again, this is a really large topic we're gonna condense. For every dollar Kentuckians pay in federal taxes, we get about $3.35 back. So that's huge, and we rank second in overall funding. of states dependent upon federal funds. So what I wanted to highlight here are, one, back in I guess January or so of 2025, there was a time when the federal administration paused federal funding. I don't know if you all remember that. cities, non-profits, state government have these federal funds and the administration said we want to pause some of this and everybody was up in arms like how we're in mid cycle of our funding we have staff we're paying we have projects we have constituents we're serving and that was a really big change unprecedented change and there were some lawsuits and so I don't know if you all are following these But it's important to know, I wanna highlight two lawsuits in particular. One is by the National Council of Nonprofits. And federal funds are flowing now because of this lawsuit. There was an injunction put in that said you can't do that mid grant. And so those federal funds are coming down for these projects now. But this lawsuit is still going on. So we're waiting for a ruling now to see what's gonna happen. It has been appealed. And then there's a second lawsuit It's not on the slide, but just a week or so ago, there was a ruling, and I'm sure it will be appealed because that's a part of the court process. But they said, in fact, just because policies or priorities change in the middle of a grant cycle, if it was already granted, you can't take it away just because your policies or priorities change mid-cycle. So that's a really big win for states and cities and for nonprofits partnering in those areas. Then let's layer on, because this is all layered. This top, I want to highlight the top two squares on the left, is the federal register is where the OMB, you get your grant guidance. So for all of those grants that I mentioned a second ago that were frozen, if you go through any grant process to get money from the feds, you are getting, you have to do it through this OMB guidance, right? It tells you the rules. What are the process? What can you have your indirect rate? All of that. Well, they recently proposed a rule that will change a lot of things. And I put this center block about NLC, the National League of Cities. And I know Chair Kramer's not here today, but he's the president this year. And we've been talking to him and seeing what's going on with NLC around these issues. And what we've found is that a lot of the issues we're working on, including this OMB issue, NLC is also working on and has a lot of similar concerns about. let me highlight two things that if this OMB proposed guidance goes into effect that would change. So for example, one, there would be uncertain funding. So you as Louisville Metro and nonprofits that either separate or partnering with get funded and then mid-cycle they say we don't want to fund this anymore, that would be allowed. There doesn't have to be a reason. It doesn't have to be you're doing anything wrong. And then the second one I want to highlight is that if these proposed rules go into effect, that you as Metro government, if you are partnering with folks, you have to really sort of micromanage them and really figure out what they're doing so that they don't do anything that could put your funding at risk. And that could be maybe a social media post they make that is unfavorable. So there's this uncertainty that is a little outrageous. This comment received over 500,000, or excuse me, this proposed rule received over 500,000 comments. And so the way that works is when a proposed rule comes out, you, me, groups, they can submit feedback on it. And that's massive, and so there are a lot of concerns around what this could mean for us, and they anticipate this going into effect in October. Now, is that reasonable? No, because they won't really have enough time to give thorough feedback on all those comments, which is a part of the process, but we need to have this on our radar, because if this comes down, whatever changes are made, it's gonna impact the way that we all are working within those grants and what our partnerships look like. We'll kinda skip some of the other things so that we can get through here. So what does all this mean for us? I highlighted some of these things already, but basically increased demand for services, increased funding requests to you all, constituent needs won't be met, fewer arts and cultural activities, less tourism, negative resident well-being, less spending and less city taxes. That's connected to how those federal and state things can impact us here locally. And then we wanna highlight, we've only got a few more things left. There's a new dashboard out there. If anyone who's following opioid spending, and I would encourage all of us to do so, there's a new dashboard that was put out by the Office of the Attorney General just last week. It launched, and you can click county by county and see how much money has come into the county. how it's being spent and this is a really the purpose for them was transparency just so that all of the residents in Kentucky who've been impacted by this epidemic can have a way to know how the money's being spent and this is a really prime opportunity for us here in Louisville to look at what we're doing and think about how we can work together and have those discussions with nonprofits who were on the ground serving folks who were impacted by this epidemic. And so here, I just did a screenshot. When you go on this website, we had a town hall this morning. That's something we do every two weeks at Kentucky Nonprofit Network. It's virtual, they're free. And we invited someone from the Attorney General's office on today, and she did a review of this website. So if you need a walkthrough on what it is, what it isn't, how to navigate it, I can send you that recording. But it's really phenomenal information that we're going to have on here. And this is a prime opportunity, again, that we'd love to work with you all on to make sure that these funds go to the people who need them the most. okay so what can you all do with all this being said again at the very high level what can you all do share our resources so that the nonprofits in your community know such a slew of amazing resources legal compliance checklists i'll just sit on that one nonprofits need to know if they're legally compliant we want them to be and we have provided a really straightforward checklist are you registered are you doing the things you're supposed to be doing Advocate for the needs of nonprofits. There are so many needs that look like what you all are advocating for already as a city that I was astounded when I started comparing. So there's a lot of opportunity for those partnerships there and to advocate together and for the needs of nonprofits. Visit your local nonprofits. If you don't know who's serving your community or if you hear of a new nonprofit that you've never heard of, go check them out, call them. If they ask you to come out for a tour, do that. It's a really cool way to know what resources are there for your constituents, but also sometimes for your friends and family. Ensure nonprofits have a seat at the table. Having us here and allowing us to testify today I think is a beautiful example of that, and we appreciate the partnership that we've built, but not just us, also the other nonprofits serving locally. Join a nonprofit board. If you have the time and energy to give back in that way, because it does take time and energy, and we have resources to help you understand what your duties are on a board, right? But join a board, get engaged. Attend one of our events, a Kentucky Nonprofit Network or a LUNC, Louisville Nonprofit Coalition event. And remember, this big takeaway is that nonprofits are delivering efficient and impactful services, we're on the front lines, we're leveraging other funds, and we're trusted community partners. There has been research in the last number of years of where do people get information that they trust, and nonprofits has been a high one there, so.

So what's coming up?

So these are things that you can expect to see happening in Louisville shortly, just in the next few months. The big one I wanna take away here is that we are organizing our second Metro Council candidate meet and greet. The anticipated date will be in late September. Once that date is finalized, everyone will get an invitation. So for all candidates, and the way that that will look is very similar to how we did it in 2024. Candidates will have a time to speak, and then they'll have a time to just chat with the attendees. We had about 100 folks, again, nonprofits, attending the last time, and it's just such an opportunity for for folks to get connected in that way. And we want to provide that for everyone, including council members who aren't up for election this year. You will also be invited. So just be on the lookout for that. That will be out hopefully in the next few weeks. So wrapping up, nonprofits get it done is a recent slogan that we've started using, and Mandy and I had a meeting with Councilman Kramer a few months ago, and he said, no way, because we're using cities get it done. So I was like, okay, well, I guess we're not very creative if we're both all using it. But also, I mean, this to me was, I don't wanna say a sign, because that sounds like, oh, it's a sign, and I know not everybody believes in that, but it's just really cool to see these things come together and the work and opportunities that we can do. And so remembering that we are stronger together because we all are trying to get it done for the people in our community. And that's really what it comes down to. So I'm gonna end actually with this slide and say we're ready for questions and we thank you for your time today and your attention and ask away.

Thank you so much for coming and sharing the presentation. Before I get into questions, Madam Clerk, if you could let the record reflect that we were joined quite some time ago by Councilman Piagentini, Councilman Chappell, and Councilman Parker. You know, I want to thank you all for the work that you do in the community. You know, obviously our nonprofit partners play a very valuable role. I'm going to talk about this. I think all of us know and it's reflected in the budget that, you know, Metro government doesn't do a lot of the services that are provided in the community. You know, we partner with with our nonprofit. We don't run shelters. We partner with our shelter providers. We don't necessarily provide direct food assistance. We partner with organizations like the community ministries at Dare to Care. They provide food assistance. And so I want to thank you all for that. I thought the reference you made to the presentation Susan gave to navigating how to get grants. I think that's really important because the more efficient that nonprofits are in applying, the less money they have to spend on overhead, the more money they have available to go to the end user. And that's ultimately what we want them to do. So I want to thank Susan, thank the Office of Management and Budget, and thank you all for coordinating that. And then finally, I just want to echo the concerns that you raised about the cuts in federal funding, which I think regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, we recognize that there are challenges with federal spending, but I think everybody can acknowledge that local governments themselves cannot make up for significant reductions in federal funding. you know we saw that in in the budget last year when there was the fear of the elimination of snap benefits you know we see it in this year's budget through the additional funding for senior nutrition programs as an example and you know while individuals in our community not all individuals in our community might take advantage of things like meals on wheels the fact that we have to then use more local dollars to fund that program you know that's money that we subsequently then can't use to fund something else and so i think that'll be an ongoing challenge uh that that you know cities and states across the country will deal with um you know as budgets change and are right size and federal but federal spending uh is is in flux so i want to thank you all for all of your work navigating those challenging times um counseling parish right thank you thank you um

I want to first say thank you for that presentation. It hits home in so many ways, just being in this nonprofit sector for over 20 years, seeing the ups and downs. And I just want to just really point out some of the things you said, because I think sometimes it gets lost during budget season around the impact of how much our nonprofits help Louisvillians, keeping it focused on our local Helping people become housed, helping people build stability helps the businesses, of course, not just the spending that nonprofits do with the local businesses, and thank you for highlighting that, putting on events, hosting out of town guests, bringing them, it benefits everyone all the way. Annual events really, really help the local businesses. And then when people build stability, they are in better position to build wealth. And I think sometimes that is lost from people we're able to build wealth due to the services being provided through the non-profits. Then fostering good partnerships, it is an investment into the city that continues to grow and it has a generational impact. that I don't think nonprofits get enough credit for. But my question, and I want to thank you, my question is, as Councilman Winkler mentioned, with the federal cuts, right, and understanding it's wreaked havoc on so many communities, we also see for nonprofit leadership that many foundations have pulled funding, especially from Kentucky. I talk to a lot of executive directors across the state, and I've talked to a lot of funders, which is why I have to travel so much. But there's people pulling out of Support of Kentucky. So I'm wondering, does this come up in your work? And I saw all the groups you had listed, and I definitely want to see those numbers grow. But how are you all talking with your groups around those reductions as well and i do like that we're looking at the opioid abatement spending making sure that that money gets to the end user and as close to the ground as possible And some people see the abatement funding as a stopgap, and it's not. It's blood money. It's not philanthropy. It's for a reason, just like our tobacco abatement. So I'm wondering how are you working with the local nonprofits who have not just, most nonprofits don't solely depend on government. How are you working with them with the funders also pulling out of Kentucky?

I see.

Go ahead.

I think in some cases we've actually seen philanthropy really try to step up here, even if it's just really getting a strong landscape assessment of what the gaps are going to be on the ground. But they also recognize they have a radically different scale of funding than the federal government. The same is true, as Councilman Winkler said, of our local governments. So we know we're not going to fill those gaps. philanthropy and foundations are making decisions about how to strategically invest, they're going through the same calculus that you are and the same calculus that we are. What we work with our nonprofits is and is ensuring that we can define the impact that we make so we are very clear about what the consequences are if we have instability in our budgeting process. I think wanting a stable budget, wanting a confident fiscal forecast, those are nonpartisan desires. We all need that. We need that in our households. We need that in our government. We need it for our nonprofit operations. So really ensuring that we can articulate what the gaps are going to be, communicating that to our policy makers as well as to our philanthropic members as well as to our foundations and funders is the most critical thing that we can be doing. The Louisville Nonprofit Coalition plays a big role in really trying to do that both quantitatively and qualitatively so that we understand how we do target the resources we maintain control over. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman Piagentini. Thank you. Quick question. It dawns on me looking at the big list of partners that are part of the coalition. Some of them can be grouped into categories, dealing with housing and homelessness. Others are dealing with what I'll generally call families. Others are dealing in health care. Others are dealing in parks. So you see sort of a couple categories of the not-for-profits. Do they... I want to say breakout, not separately, but is there anything that the coalition does to help them coordinate, get together, and work in those particular sectors, whether that's cooperation or, hey, we're doing this, hey, how are you doing that, and let's work together on these things because they have maybe different missions but common overall vision, right? Does that happen amongst the coalition as well?

Yeah, and so I think there are two things I want to say about that. One, I don't know if I specified that our work as a coalition is really about the nonprofit sector as a whole. And so our focus, that's why we have those various groups at the table, because we want to see what's impacting us as a sector and how do we improve that. That's number one. is yes, these groups have an opportunity when we get together to share things. What are you doing? Here's what's coming up. How can we partner? And often what I love about our meetings is at the end of the meeting, sometimes before the meeting, but usually at the end, Folks are sticking around and chatting, and they're having these opportunities to say, oh, I'm doing this. Can you sign on? Should we collaborate? Is this funding an opportunity that fits for us to do together? So there are those things happening. Additionally, a lot of these groups have their own associations that are specific for the type of work that they do. So what we're filling in is that gap, is where there's no one else doing work on behalf of the sector except for us. here in the state, right? So those opportunities are sometimes already there for them in their subsectors, and we try to provide that a little bit at our meetings as well.

Yeah, great. I mean, even health care. I mean, yeah, there's a couple of these things where I, and even the health care organizations in here might be coordinating with the housing organizations. That's right. So, yeah, so it was just, you know, it just struck me as in looking at it, obviously, you know, how do you write grants and how do you do these things that are more generic to any not-for-profit? But I was just thinking about how even operationally there could be coordination and assistance amongst sort of the ecosystem by itself. So thank you very much. Appreciate you. Wonderful. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here today. I do want to kind of mimic of what others have said. I appreciate all that you all do in bringing those forward. And as Councilman Piagentini said, I have had the opportunity to see firsthand being in these meetings those some of these nonprofit organizations working together and talking across the board or across the table and the questions being asked of those. So thank you for being that bridge and being that gap. One of the things I know that my assistant has heard me say a lot since being in the office is, I want to be able to, if anything, be able to bring some of these nonprofits together to be able to serve more people at one time, instead of trying to spread that across the city. So, again, thank you for doing that. Thank you for being able to bring some of these decisions down to earth and bringing stability across the city. I don't so much have a question, but just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for making this something that all 26 of us and all of our systems and our offices can be part of and help our constituents.

Great, thank you. Thank you, Councilman. There's no one else on cue. Thank you all for being here and for your presentation today.

Thank you so much. You all take care.

Thank you. The next item of business is item 2-0-185-26, an ordinance of the Louisville Metro Jefferson County Metro Government providing for and authorizing the issuance of certain general obligation bonds and notes of the Metro Government in one or more series to finance the costs of various public projects as described in Metro government capital projects budgets, setting forth the terms and conditions on which the bonds and notes are to be issued, and providing for a competitive advertised sale thereof, defining and providing for the rights of the holders of the bonds and the notes, and providing for the application of the proceeds thereof, and taking through related action relating to the issuance and sale of the bonds and the notes. May I have a motion and second, please. We have a motion and second for this very elegantly worded, titled piece of legislation. I believe we have a speaker, Ms. Dunn, if you could introduce yourself and speak to this ordinance.

Sure, good afternoon. I'm glad we had enough time to get through that introduction. It is quite lengthy, but Angela Dunn, Chief Financial Officer for Louisville Metro Government. This is the, we are proceeding or moving forward with the issuance of our 2026 Bond issuance, this would be for capital projects that have been identified in the 2026 budget that would have been funded through bond proceeds. There are no other, there's no refundings or anything like that. So it is limited to the 2026. It was originally submitted at 95,360,000. We did amend it to 100,360,000. That was the only change in that amendment. And that was to include some park parking authority They had reached out to us after we had originally submitted the ordinance and asked if they could join the issuance with us. They have, the amendment includes renovations and improvements to some of their existing structures. They will pay the debt service. So we will work through that with them or we'll ensure that that debt service associated with their portion of the bonds is paid by them.

Thank you. Angie, can you speak at all to sort of the anticipated rates for these bonds?

I have Chip Southerland here with me, and he may have some, a better, I did what the update, what it's looking like right now.

Good evening, everyone. Chip Sullivan with Baird, municipal advisor to Metro Louisville. And just to answer the question pretty directly, interest rates have risen this week. You know, everybody's kind of seeing the news with the conflict. And we refreshed it earlier this morning, and we were looking, it's a shorter term, It's a borrowing where we're paying off a lot of principal kind of pretty early in the bond issue, so we're looking at a rate probably around 4% plus or minus. So it's in the pocket of good affordable debt, but rates have gone up in the last couple months. Thank you. Councilman Biagentini.

If anybody can stop the war in Iran and get these gas prices and bond prices down, we'll be fine. I just want to clarify two things. The whole amendment, I think you said it, but just to clarify. The reason there's an amendment by substitution, do we have to vote on the amendment by substitution? Yeah, okay. The reason it exists is just to add park. There's no other changes, correct? Correct. Okay. And then I think I know the answer, but just want to confirm, parks portion, they are liable to within the park budget only, and then we're liable for our own. In other words, we're not liable for parks bonds, correct?

That's correct. Okay, thank you.

It's just in the menu.

Yeah. Yeah. I've got one more question.

Yes, so seeing no more discussion, if we could get a motion on the amendment. Motion. Motion and a second. Motion by Councilman Biagentini, second by Councilman Herndon. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The ayes have it. The amended ordinance is now before us. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, this is an item requiring a roll call vote. Madam Clerk, please open the voting.

Councilmember Parker.

Councilman, can you vote again? Yes, I believe that's a yes.

Okay, we see I'm giving you a yes. Councilmember Mulvey-Woolridge?

Yes.

Mr. Chair, you have eight yes votes.

Thank you. The item passes, but due to the amendment, we'll move to old business. Ms. Dunn, thanks for coming. Chip, thanks for coming. Thank you. Good to see you all. Having no more business before us, without objection, the meeting's adjourned.

those in the June 6th event. Happy Birthday Park Incorporated set up several stations with the kinds of materials that the children would have used in the 1890s. We wanted to attract more attention to the Happy Birthday Park because when we have a plan we will start asking the community to support us financially so that we can build the park. And we wanted people to know that