And let's call this meeting to order for the finance committee.

Can I get a little bit more?

Colby, yeah.

Just kind of give a overview.

Okay, so city council members.

Um, if you guys all recall in the past, um, when it comes to allocations for our hood dollars, which is ESG, CDBG, and home, typically we would have every agency that has submitted a proposal come before you all to I guess kind of give their spiel and their reasoning for being allocated funding for that program year's allocations.

Um, it was recommended by a few council members in the past that if agencies were, I guess, satisfied with what has been recommended by the CAC and/or the mayor, that they don't be required to come on a mandatory requirement.

But um, maybe if they feel like you know their allocate their recommendation is not sufficient and they want to make an ask for more money.

So you'll you'll see it a little bit differently this year because obviously it's a it's a lighter audience, which is a good sign.

And so unfortunately, we don't know who all I have a list of those that did come today to speak, and so I will um allow.

I guess if if uh councilman green, if you want to just call whoever is here up one by one, we can um look at which proposals they may have more than one on the spreadsheet, and they can get their two minutes.

I guess they've been allotted in the past to talk to you about their programs and why they're seeking the funding that they are.

So that's my my piece.

So should I go through the list?

Um just having they can come up and tell me who they are.

Yeah, okay.

So I have one first but first up, St.

Vincent DePaul.

St.

Vincent DePaul.

Yeah, it's like a hello.

Uh my name's Noah Warner.

I'm with Saint Vincent of Paul in Evansville.

Um, thank you.

He might have the number 12.

Okay, let me put it in.

Ashley Newell, our director, executive director, spoke to the citizens advisory committee earlier this year, but I um I just stand here.

I used to work for outreach ministries.

We used to get a grant, a CDBG grant for $20,000, and that numbers kind of it's gone down over time consistently, the recommendation.

So I just stand here to uh out of belief in our in the work we do, just kind of a vote for us.

The assistance we've done has only increased as things have gotten tougher.

We've increased the uh assistance we provide in the community, and uh we invest in the community a lot.

I just ask for uh just investment in St.

Vincent of Paul because I said we do really good work in the community.

Um everybody know what St.

Vincent DePaul does, and this position that it helps fund.

C D BG does not fund everything that the position does, but lots of uh we also can write grants and uh we've increased the funding we've got to provide financial assistance.

So the return on investments I believe is really good for uh what CDBG does for Save and Center Paul.

So I appreciate everything.

I just like I said I come here because I care what we do, I believe in what we do, and I just ask for your support.

Thank you.

This is voices, mayor number 24.

Yep, 24.

Um, ladies and gentlemen of the council, um, thank you for allowing me to be here today um to share with you a little bit about what voices does.

I'm Michelle Mata from Voices and the long-term care ombudsman in Vanderburgh County.

Voices is here to provide a much-needed voice for our neighbors and loved ones living in local long-term care homes.

So that's assisted livings and nursing homes.

Voices is the only agency, only only agency in Evansville to provide these services.

People are really shocked to learn these folks actually, have many rights, most importantly, the right to be treated with dignity and respect and make choices about their lives that are important to them, just like you or I can where we live.

Voices provides a plethora of free and confidential information to our neighbors in long-term care, from providing current information about long-term care homes that is absolutely not easily accessible to consumers, to demanding corrective action from nursing home administrators when resident rights are violated, to representing residents in hearings to prevent their unfair eviction, and residents have been evicted to the homeless shelters.

The ombudsman, because we didn't know about it until it happened.

The Ombudsman of Voices, we have one full-time and one part-time person.

We are tireless advocates for some of our city's most vulnerable residents.

Was there a question?

Okay, I would just like to say that this year and last year, or this the most recent year that we got funding, it was decreased from eighteen thousand down to thirteen thousand dollars.

And so I just I feel like there might have been some misunderstanding as to what we do, and I just want to clarify that there is no duplication of services for us, none whatsoever.

Your continued support of voices through community development block grant funds is very important to nearly 2,300 of our neighbors living in 23 nursing homes here in Vanderburgh County, and we ensure that they have the advocacy they need, that we are a voice for them, and we do everything we can to protect their quality of life and their quality of care.

Does anyone have any questions?

So if there, if you find any extra money anywhere, just please keep us in mind.

So are you saying the year before last you were you got got 18,000?

And then last year was decreased to 13.

And then that is what they've that's what it looks like.

Yes, we've yes, okay, all right.

There was an issue with an email coming from DMD going into a folder that I didn't couldn't really access, and so I didn't know that there was the meeting until it already had happened, so I wasn't able to be here.

Okay, technology.

Right.

No, we appreciate all the work you do.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

So you'll have okay, Memorial CDC.

They have proposal 53 through 60.

Good evening, council members.

I just come actually before you to say thank you for your generous and continued support of Memorial CDC.

Um, some of our largest programs will actually see an action, and you are welcome to come and see us starting May the 28th through June the 8th.

We will have a little over 100 kids daily on our campus due to this funding through our child care through our middle school programming, and of course, our youth employment programming, which is becoming even more crucial to families at this time for those that we serve in that low to moderate income range, so allowing them to earn a little money to get some back to school, clothes and take care of themselves and relieve some of the pressure that their parents are feeling, um, is crucial at this uh time.

Um gas prices, grocery prices, all those good things.

So we just want to say thank you for your continued support.

Um, anyone that has not had a tour, we welcome you to come and do a tour with us and see the facilities and the work and how the CDBG is integral to our daily work with those youth and young adults.

Um, in addition to that, the emergency repair program.

I would be remiss without saying that that is a wonderful partnership with the city.

We're able to tag team with the affordable housing trust fund to be able to provide those home repairs to residents in the city that need that.

So we thank you for your continued support.

Any questions?

Thank you.

As I said before, agencies that wanted to come share, you know, in their programs and the need for making a different asks, were invited to come tonight.

So it's a thin crowd, which is a good sign.

Um, hopefully, all of our agencies have been satisfied with the recommendations that have been made with the CAC, and then the mayor makes her recommendations.

You all are responsible for making final allocations that would take place on June 8th at the June 8th City Council meeting.

So we wanted to um we always want to offer up this time between the agency meeting and the final reading for um making those final allocations for you all to have time to review proposals, which everyone should have as part of the drop box.

My community development coordinator Haley Hale would have sent that to everybody, probably maybe a month or more ago.

So if you do not have that email, we can make sure we reforward that so that you are able to see all the corresponding proposals for every agency that submitted a request for funding this year, and then hopefully be able to answer any questions that you all have prior to that June 8th meeting.

I'm also happy to answer anything that I can while you have me here now.

If anybody has any questions, but that is just this event in a nutshell.

Can you just go over if we did want to make any changes, you know, the kind of the guidelines for how that is.

So typically uh if there's any new programs that have that are making requests for funding for the first time, and that's usually with CDBG, we ask that you that they don't you don't go lower than the minimum, the maximum of excuse me, minimum of $10,000.

And that is just because it's you know anything lower than that is is not worth the staff hours to you know paperwork and process their the claims that are associated with of anything less than $10,000.

So that is the minimum that we would um recommend that you you uh allocate.

If if it's I will say that if you looking at your spreadsheet, numbers 10 through 34 are all CDBG, but they are public service activities.

And so with public service activities, there's a 15% cap, meaning we can't spend spend more than 15% of the grant the total grant funds on those activities, and so we try to stay under that 15% because certain things do come up throughout the year.

If we go over that, we have an issue with HUD and we don't want to have issues with HUD.

So just be mindful.

So if there's any shifting in amounts for agencies that are in our numbers 10 through 34, you'll be moving amongst those.

You can't move below from numbers 35 to essentially 62 because everything beyond that is internal.

So keep if you move within public service, that's fine.

If you move within non-public service, that's fine, but you can't move public service to non-public and vice versa.

So that's also something to keep in mind.

I think that I think those are pretty much all the rules that you you have to keep in mind, the minimums and then the caps with public service and then not moving within the two categories.

And then just kind of go through the timeline as far as uh what we what you know what we've done to this point, and then you know, when we get the final, that just would be interesting.

So the grant cycle basically kicks off with the grant training.

So there's an annual grant training for any interested party, whether you've received allocations in the past or whether you're new, that usually takes place in the summer, so June or July.

Um, so for example, the 2027 grant cycle, um which will start planning for.

There will be a grant training for that for any interested parties.

They would get with my my department.

We can get you signed up for that.

You'll attend a mandatory grant training about a couple weeks to a month after that, we'll accept proposals.

So there will be a window of proposal applications that will open and close.

Um those agencies will work with DMD staff, the CD staff specifically, to make sure that you know eligibility, compliance, all the things HUD related.

Um, and then we put together those proposals.

We have a commit uh citizens advisory committee, which is um a local uh group of residents that actually makes the first set of recommendations for our public service activities.

So if you look at your spreadsheet, the very first column you'll see for numbers 10 through 34, they have CAC, and so those recommendations came from that committee.

That's where it starts.

Once CAC has made its recommendations, those recommendations move on to the mayor.

She's the second step in that process, and she will make her recommendations typically if CAC makes theirs in the beginning of the year, like in January, February, the mayor's making hers in March or April.

Um we try to wait as close as we can to when HUD actually tells us how much funds we're going to get so that we know for a fact how much money there is to work with and allocate amongst the agencies, and then the last step after the mayor makes her recommendations is City Council.

So before that meeting, you all meet with the agencies, find out you know what their programs are like, what their requests are, ask any questions of them, and then that last step is the second and final reading where you guys make those final allocations, which will be on June 8th for this year for 2026.

You're welcome.

Colby, do we have anybody that did not uh use all their funds last year?

Yes, we always have agencies for various reasons that don't spend all their funds in a year, and um sometimes funds get repurposed for other projects and activities, and those whenever that happens, it will come through a finance ordinance to city council, and you'll see that.

And then sometimes if there's funds that are left over and the agency, you know, doesn't say, you know, oh, we'll relinquish the funds and they can go to something else.

They may make a request for the funds to be moved to another program or activity they have if they have one.

So you may see one or the other, but any time funds are moved, whether it's same agency, different activity, or entirely new activity, new agency, it will come before you all in a finance ordinance.

Anyone have any questions for Coleman?

No, I just want to state that I appreciate um having I appreciate the fact that we're not voting on this tonight.

So just staying for the record.

I appreciate that we have time to look this over and we make final decision then in the next meeting versus tonight.

So thank you for that.

I think that was a good idea.

So happy to have implemented that and thank you all for um your part in playing that you play in all this again.

Um you have until June 8th, so if there are any questions that do come up in between that time, please send them my way, and I'll be happy to answer any questions that you all might have.

And and who did that email come from again?

It came from Haley Hale, H A L E Y H A L E.

Thank you.

She'll she can forward that to you to make sure you get it.

Okay.

I remember seeing it, and I just want to go back and find it.

And so it'll have a letter that kind of explains what this process is like, and it also has the spreadsheet that you all have before you, and then it has the corresponding proposals for every single proposal that was submitted.

And then is when is this gonna be on first reading?

Will that be like so?

First reading already happened, it was on May 11th.

Because we wanted this meeting to not be on the same night as um the final allocations, which is what happened in the past.

Lots of pressure, not enough time for council to think it over.

That's why we're doing it a little bit differently this year.

So you guys have a couple weeks.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Yes, Sarita, I think.

That's I just want to declare my business for 2026.

And we may not even know our calendar of fiscal years, internally, but our organization may not be back.

We're operating a little bit behind as well.

So no pressure.

And we might have these contracts to the late fall.

It depends on when whenever HUD signs our uh gets our grants grant agreements signed for the mayor, and then they approve our action plan.

So we submit an annual action plan with all of these final allocations and a number of other narratives that go along with that.

Um, we do post that on the city of Evansville's website so you guys can see the annual action plan each year that we submit to HUD.

That is part of the allocations process as well.

Colby, did you have any heartburn in any of these uh decisions?

You feel pretty good.

I mean, you get these recommendations, which is no, uh uh our CD staff does a pretty good job of um making sure that we have the information that we need throughout the year.

So, like agencies are responsible for submitting monitoring reports, monthly monitoring reports as part of this process, so we are able to see what they're doing at each month, you know, with their activities and programs.

So that along with the monitoring that we do, we do a remote monitoring, we do a on-site monitoring.

Not all of them get on-site monitoring every year, but we try to make it at least every other year that every program is receiving an on-site monitoring.

So as a result of those monitorings, those monthly monitoring reports, you know, we have a pretty good idea staff does staff and myself of how these agencies and programs are performing.

Most of them do rather well, performing year to year.

Um I mean, sometimes there are some concerns.

There are some findings.

Um we do take and you know, give them corrective actions to address those things.

But um, like I said, staff does a pretty good job with staying up to date and informed on how everyone's everyone's performing and communicating that, and I do my best to communicate that information out to the bodies that receive the proposals and that make recommendations and allocations.

So again, when you guys see those proposals and you look at um the questions that reference you know how many people or uh activities are serving what they're doing as far as serving, um, and you have questions year over year, you know, maybe what they did last year versus what they did this year, um, ask those questions, and we're happy to provide that information so you guys have more of a holistic picture of you know what you guys are making allocations for every year.

And Kobe, I also um want to thank you and your department.

I um had a I guess I would say a concern, you know, about how many of our organizations don't know that this is an option for them.

Um, and we talked about um how to get the word out because we you know we know our organizations who are aware of the process and they you know request as needed.

Um then there are some that probably have no idea that this is a service and this is an opportunity for them.

And I want to thank you and your um your department for being proactive in that and reaching out to some nonprofits to let them know that there's a training coming up to learn more about the process and things of that sort.

Um, the one thing that we hear all the time is that people want transparency, people want information, they want you know communication, and your department is doing that.

Thank you, and I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Um, as councilwoman Taylor said, uh our staff has been tasked with trying to um create a list of nonprofits, maybe nonprofits that have received funds, but a lot of nonprofits that have not received funds in the past that may be out there in the community and unaware of this funding opportunity.

And so we are in the process of creating a postcard, if you will, that can be sent out to any nonprofits that we have not um had request funds before, and so it's another way to get the word out and share in that you know there are grant funds available and there's a process, and if you want to be a part of it, um reach out to us and we'll be happy to get you connected.

Anyone got anything else?

Could we thank you?

All right, thank you.

Let me know when the quote when we have questions.

Thank you.

We're not