Okay, we're ready to start for the uh our meeting is Indianapolis Local Public Improvement Bond Bank.

And this uh board meeting has been is pursuant to the Indianapolis Indiana open door policy.

And so I'd like to call this meeting to order anybody the first part of agenda of the minutes from February 23rd.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, having read the minutes is presented, I would move their approval.

Do we have a root second?

All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Approval of the minutes is passed.

Uh if anybody is going to talk today, please come up and sign in so we know.

There wasn't a signage date.

It's on the door.

Oh, it would only be at the board at questions.

Okay.

Do you want me to have to sign it?

So you got to thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Um, so uh having approved the minutes.

Um the next item on our agenda is uh presentation from the India Arts Council.

Um I'd like to introduce um Judith Thomas, who is uh president and CEO of the Arts Council as well as uh Cabita Mahoney, uh who's vice president as you might remember as a part of the 2026 budget, the uh Indianapolis Bond Bank.

Um the budget included a grant of 500,000 dollars for uh Indie Arts Council initiatives for 2026.

So uh Judith and Cavita have come to talk about uh initiatives uh related to that this year for the arts council.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Good to see you all.

I'm Judith Thomas, uh CEO.

Let me redo that president and CEO of the Indy Arts Council.

That president has to go before the CEO.

I have no idea why.

And then I have with me, Kavitha, would you like to introduce yourself?

Sure, I'm Kavita Mahoney.

I'm the vice president at the Indie Arts Council.

I've been there for about two years, and Judith is coming up on her one year.

Yeah, it's coming up on uh year one, April 21st, as some of you may know as deputy mayor for about four or five, well, four years, I say about 20 years and dog years, but it was a great experience.

So I'm excited to be in front of you uh here today to talk about uh the Indy Arts Council, which is just an absolutely wonderful organization.

Uh so a little bit about uh the arts council.

Our mission, our mission is to champion arts and culture.

Uh, we believe that every resident in the city of Indianapolis should experience arts and culture in a way that nourishes and inspires them.

So the vision of a creative life for all is central to the work that we do, and it's all about supporting artists, arts organizations, and the community.

And you know they make this city come alive.

And so we do this with our guiding values, the three Cs we call them care, community, and creativity.

So as we look um into the advocating for the community, you know, funding and that support is necessary for a very thriving uh scene here in the city.

We're constantly pursuing and we're promoting ideas and programs to serve our artists, the arts organizations, and the community, and we connect artist audiences and businesses as well as foundations and organizations with opportunities to explore and expand Central Indiana's creativity creative vitality.

Also, uh many folks don't realize this, and we're on a marketing campaign to discuss and promote all the things that we do in so many unique ways, but we also uh own and operate two performance venues and exhibit spaces spaces.

Indianapolis Arts Garden.

Everyone loves the Arts Garden, it's been around for 30 years now.

Hard to believe, and uh Gallery 924, that's 924 Pennsylvania, where our offices are also located, but we have a beautiful gallery there as well.

Our online initiative is very exciting where we explore Indie Arts is what we call it.

This provides a comprehensive arts calendar featuring thousands of events throughout the years, throughout the year performances and exhibitions throughout Central Indiana.

Now that calendar is also shared with Visit Indy.

So that means not only do our residents benefit uh from all the programming that's taken place throughout central Indiana, but uh so are our visitors here.

So for several decades, the city has entrusted us with public funding to support local arts and culture organizations.

In 2025, our funding increased thanks to the Capital Improvement Board and to the Bond Bank.

So thank you.

We can't thank you enough, actually, for the generous support.

It means a lot.

These funds were used for our annual grants program, which provides general operating support for over a hundred organizations.

And we'll we'll get into details of through the years, but I I always emphasize the fact that we supported over a hundred organizations this past year, where in 2016 it was 49 organizations.

It shows the growth of the arts community in the city of Indianapolis and how we have to continue to support it.

We also worked with sector wide marketing, which connects residents to local art experiences and offerings in the city.

And our annual arts and culture project grants as well, which funded to artists directly and organizations to implement programs in public spaces like parks, libraries, community centers, and other accessible spaces.

So we'll share more about that program as well and the impact in the last year.

So our annual grants program, again, since 1987, pretty much the Pan Am Games.

You guys remember the PayM Games.

I actually attended events.

Some people weren't born yet.

You were born, I'm sorry.

The city of Indianapolis has invested in nonprofit and culture and arts and culture organizations through this annual grants program again since 1987.

And it's been administered by the Indy Arts Council since.

So again, I mentioned in 25, uh, a record 103 organizations receive funding to support the programs, exhibitions, and activities that nearly 8 million residents and visitors enjoy each year.

And so to ensure fairness, an independent panel of national grant professionals evaluates the application process, and it is public.

Scoring centers on diversity, equity, inclusion, and access across all three areas of community impact, artistic alignment, and organizational capacity with an emphasis on racial and socioeconomic equity.

So the annual grants program has grown significantly in the last decade, as you can see on the screen there.

This includes equitable investments in people of color-centered organizations, which are organizations led or primarily primarily serving people of color.

Given that Marion County is 50% people of color, we try to match these demographics and how we steward the city dollars to invest in organizations.

We also make sure to invest in equitably in small and mid-sized organizations who are serving their communities through accessible arts programming and experiences.

I think that's truly where we see a lot of the growth.

In just 10 years, we have more than doubled the number of organizations who are funded through this program from 49 to 103, demonstrating significant growth in our thriving community.

So in 2025, we invested in record breaking.

And these two it also included two newer organizations to support capacity building projects.

All of our grantees are based in all 25 city-county council districts.

I think that's important to stay in all of the districts.

So much going on.

I think you wanted to take over the question for us, didn't you?

So in 2025, we launched a small pilot program of project grants for arts and cultural programming in public spaces.

We don't really have, we currently have zero public or other unrestricted funding that's able to support arts and cultural project grant funding.

And this is a significant gap in our current ecosystem as this funding enables us to generate momentum and proof of concept to advocate for more sustained project funding and with local partners based on the results and the impact of this program.

So our project grant actually directly relates to our strategic plan priorities.

We launched a new strategic plan in 2025, and as part of that plan, we not only surveyed our arts organizations and arts leaders, but we did a statistically valid survey of Marion County and the Donut Counties, about 3,000 individuals contributed, including these households, and we asked them about their participation in and perception of arts and culture.

What do they do?

How do they value arts and culture?

And what we learned was that the number one place where residents experience and access arts and culture are not your traditional museum spaces or theaters.

They're actually parks, libraries, public spaces, community centers, places that people already feel welcome and are going to.

We also benchmarked against a bunch of cities across the nation in our strategic plan.

And this included cities such as you know, Columbus, Ohio or Louisville that are comparable to Indy, as well as aspirational cities such as like Seattle or Chicago, and about three quarters of the cities that we benchmarked against have project grant funding available.

It's a core function of what arts councils do.

And this is this is you know something our community's been asking us for for probably a couple decades.

So we were excited to finally launch this program with the increased funding that we got from the from the city and from all of you just to to see, you know, um, and to be able to support what folks are asking for, both residents and the sector, the arts sector.

Um launching this program and demonstrating its impact is vital to raising more funding, also from this program.

So it's not just public funding that we're at we're we're trying to raise funding for, being able to show the impact of this and going to other private funders to show how much arts programming can impact our communities.

Um this funding is available to artists, it's available to neighborhood groups, community center, arts organizations.

Virtually anyone who is doing arts and cultural programming can have access to these funds.

And so we launched our first round um last year.

So here's a little bit of data for you.

Um in our inaugural 2025 project grant round, we had um over 850,000 of funding requested through the applications.

We were able to fund about we had 90,000 dollars, so we funded 90,000, which is 10 applicants from the 96 applicants that applied.

So that's about 10% of the funding requests that we got, we were actually able to fund.

Um so that just kind of demonstrates a significant need.

We just launched our 2026 round of project grants for um arts and in these public spaces.

Uh that closed yesterday, that application round, and it's it's the same data again, about 10% is what we'll be able to fund.

We had um over $700,000 in in requests for this current round.

Um, so definitely uh definitely a need, and something that we're we're this data we continue to share with some of our um philanthropic and and and private funders just to kind of demonstrate truly the need for this this type of funding.

Um so we funded in two different tracks for the 2025 program in youth arts education as well as the arts and culture programming in public spaces.

This is a list of some of the uh of the applicants that um received the funding, and I won't go through all of this, you have it in your packets, um, but wanted to highlight a couple here.

So, Indianapolis Movement Arts Collective is a is a nonprofit organization that's uh movement-based and dance-based, and they were able to create a program where a visually impaired dance performer, dancer performs and teaches at the Indiana School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

It's a really impactful program.

We also had oops.

We also um in the track of arts and public spaces, we also had Arts for Learning, who's hosting workshops that are exploring emotions through multidisciplinary arts experiences that's taking place at Cranert Park on the west side of Indy, among several other um project grants.

Um we also have uh local artist Trisha O'Connors leading arts experiences with immigrant families at at local uh libraries doing some arts programming there.

So we look forward to receiving the final reports from all of these grantees that'll happen later this year.

And so the next time that we're able to present and meet with all of you, we can share the impact from those final grant reports once these programs have taken place.

Um key key words there they're free for the residents.

Free.

So investment and impact.

Well, we're really grateful for the public uh funding that we do receive uh from the city, the bond bank, and CIB.

We continue to share and advocate for the arts sector by demonstrating the impact of our work uh on the community and and the continuing uh and increase, continuing increased investment needed to support our artists and arts organizations.

So give you an idea, uh Kavitha referenced the comparison of other cities, right?

So it's a part of our strategic plan again, we benchmark against uh comparable and and and aspirational cities.

As you can see, we have a budget of about uh 4.9 million dollars with a per capita expenditure expenditure of five dollars and sixty-eight cents, the lowest among peers.

So when you look at cities like uh Columbus at $25, Cincinnati at over $56 uh their spending is much higher uh per capita.

Detroit, though serving a slightly smaller uh uh population has a per capita budget of uh $14.21 cents.

So even the mid-sized cities like Pittsburgh uh report a much higher uh per capita budget of uh $52.76.

That's Pittsburgh.

So indicating that the Arts Council operates with relatively fewer financial resources per resident compared to many of its peers, we still operate at a high level and are really engaged with our community, and despite having one of the largest populations served in the benchmark, it Indy's uh total budget is uh considerably uh lower.

So we're also as a sector facing uh uh cuts at the federal and the state level, which greatly impact the community here.

For instance, Indiana Arts Commission saw a 38% cut uh in its current two-year state appropriation.

Uh and again, that's Indiana Arts Commission that serves the entire state, which incredible programming going on throughout the state as well.

Central Indiana organizations will experience a 19% decrease in state operating support funding, and Marion County experiencing that harder with a 23% decrease.

For project support, Central Indiana saw a huge 44% decrease with Marion County even more significantly impacted with a 75% decrease in project support funding.

So the largest uh funding gaps are in project funding and general operating support.

Uh project support is being cut, uh, especially here in Marion County, and as we demonstrated early earlier, we cannot fund more than 10% of the requests we're receiving for project funding, but there's a deep need for it.

Clearly, this is an area of great need that benefits our residents access to free or low cost art experiences.

Again, this is the first time we've even done project grants, and the fact that we had such a high um demand for it.

So funding is starting to go up, but the number of organizations we support has more than doubled, as we mentioned, and they will continue to grow as this city continues to evolve.

So a reminder of our investment from the city and how it has changed over the years.

So the investment is still below early 2000 levels despite sector growth.

Uh as you can see, uh, the investments during in ARPA were just so important to this community.

And I was in the mayor's office at that time, but saw the impact, and we did not lose arts organizations, right?

They were able to even uh produce during that time and even help the city get messaging out in different ways.

So it was very important.

And so when we got back to in 23 and 24, back to the norm, we were lucky enough to be able to have the CIB and Bond Bank investments, and you can see that increase on that chart.

So despite funding constraints, we know how important arts and culture is and what a huge impact it has on our local community and even the people that visit here.

It's proof of that when you look back on the WNBA All-Star Game, the NBA All Star Game, and Swish, what we're working on with the NCAA coming up.

That even when our visitors come here, we're gonna have about 150 artists out uh uh performing at sidewalk galleries in the coming weeks, and and those sidewalk galleries will continue to stay up.

So we're always making that impact.

And so we we we are really looking to keep that strength going, and and we know that we make an impact in ways with community development, public safety, youth and adult learning, health and wellness, workforce development.

A lot of people that work in the arts and culture community, as well as quality of life and quality of place for all of us, uh, regardless of uh whether you're a visitor or residents, it just makes this city better.

And so this is a great um uh investment for you to see the power of Indy's nonprofit of arts and culture industry uh with this.

Uh we heavily contribute to our economic impact in the city.

Just in Indianapolis alone, we generate over 524 million in direct economic impact through the arts sector, serving 6.5 million annually and employing thousands, and these numbers continue to increase in the last few years.

We're so grateful for the bond bank support that contributes to this economic impact in a major way.

Truly appreciate that support.

So thank you.

Uh we appreciate your continued support with the Indy Arts Council and the culture here in this city and your commitment to the city's creative economy.

It makes us special and unique, and it's certainly a sense of pride.

Uh so we're happy to answer any questions you have at this time.

I don't have a question, Mr.

Chairman, but for all my years on the city council and dominant community.

The arts folks have done a great job, and you should be well commended and uh go find some more money.

Yeah, today to day at a conversation as we have.

I think it's uh pretty big.

Yes, a lot of money away.

Yes, you guys do a great job, and you know, I know we used to have the start with art luncheon every year, and that went on for about 20 years.

We still have it.

August 20th.

It's wonderful.

So we'll make sure you get invited.

We'll make sure you guys all get invited.

It's just such a wonderful night.

Right.

Good job.

Thank you.

Um, the extension from what Frank talked about.

Is there a lot of interaction between the high schools in Indianapolis and Brock?

Because it seems like we have a lot of stars that turn out to be dancers or singers.

Yes.

We do.

Even last night we had two nominees for the Academy Awards, right?

Right.

The short story finished.

That's what we're reminded of.

Yes, of course.

There is Joe and Tom.

Europe for an Academy Award.

No, it's really a wonderful story.

Of the one place, well, there are many places we interact.

I mean, if you can see some of the youth programs, a lot of uh the kids come out of those youth programs, especially when they're in their neighborhoods.

Uh but even the arts garden when since we own and operate the arts garden, every year in the holidays, we invite city uh choirs, uh schools to come and perform for their families and uh for residents.

So we've got that connection, but you will see so many young people that were a part of so many of these programs that go on.

When you think about yes, the children's museum, but then you also see Asante Children's uh performances and Freetown Village and and some of the dances and just it it's endless.

Um we have that connection and we will continue that connection.

Yeah, we fund and support a lot of those youth serving organizations, um, but then we also partner with Butler Center for Arts Education and Innovation.

Um so we're trying to kind of build our um education arts education side of of things um in the coming years, and then we're also trying to look for funding in terms of workforce development, trying to help artists at every stage of their career.

So, you know, the high school diploma requirement, can we feed some of those high school students into arts path career pathways?

How are we um supporting college students that are studying um in the fields of of the arts with paid opportunities or placements and things like that?

So our strategic plan called for a lot of that.

We're trying to raise funding and find strategic partnerships um with uh workforce and youth um employment sort of uh organizations to explore that further.

For sure.

And did I say that those two that were nominated were North Central grads?

Go Panthers class 85.

I did say that.

I just want to say it again.

And I was proud of that because both of my kids went there.

Yes, of course.

Go for Anthers.

Any other questions or yes?

I have one uh thanks for coming in.

Uh very informative presentation.

I have one question.

Could you review and just briefly?

Uh you did mention a survey and that sort of thing, but relative to your own budget, could you review what opportunities for input from taxpayers there are to influence uh the good work you do?

That's a good question.

I think uh when we uh normally go uh in front of the parks committee, you know, the whole budget process.

We do have a time where we have folks show up and talk about the importance of the arts and the impact, and we have a lot of arts organizations come and speak up.

And of course, we want the general public to be able to say this is what makes us stay in Indianapolis.

This is what gets us excited about Indianapolis and would love for them to um uh be able to give some input.

We encourage people to talk to their city county counselors to say this is what is important to us, and we'd like to see further funding.

Of course, I'd like to advocate uh uh for more funding as well, but we've got to we're not gonna raise taxes or anything.

We want to be able to make sure are there other levers where we can get more funding when you compare to the other cities.

You know, what where else can we can the city invest, and we need our residents to ask that question to the city councilors?

We can't do that alone.

We're working it on the inside as we can.

Uh we we'd love to see a more robust budget.

Would love to be able to invest more in the 103 and more coming on in the annual grants program.

But we've we've been at 1.3 since 2000, what was it, eight?

It's the same size pie, just a lot of smaller slices now.

Yeah, that that's helpful.

Uh I think a couple of months ago some folks came in a little late in the process, so I just want to understand kind of what been sort of thing.

And I think I may have met with uh those folks to understand that this is not a competition, this is all within the city.

We've got to work with each other and you know, what take from Peter to pay Paul, we've got to be able to work together and enhance what the city's all about.

Right.

Thank you.

That probably gets me to my question as well.

Um, because I mean it's a pretty wide variation on your kind of budget per capita.

Um on your presentation.

Um I assume most of that has to do with kind of public dollars that are dedicated, right?

But are there any lessons learned for some of these other places where you know there are other creative ways, public, private, public and private, public private together, you know, um those partnerships.

Repeat the work of that process.

Um and I can share.

Um yes, both on the public and private side.

Um so for example, Columbus is like they're a policy genius.

They and for us, we have a uniga, right?

So we have city county.

Most of these cities are tapping into city funds, county funds, and state funds when it comes to to their public funding, um, as well as federal funds, which are more finicky um and and less GOS based and more um project based.

So a lot of these folks, since we we have a city-county unigov, we can't dip double dip into county funds like some of these folks are doing.

A lot of them are pulling tax levers.

So for example, Cleveland in the last couple of years was able to increase the percentage they get from cigarette tax, and that goes directly into their arts and culture organizations, their arts and arts council, excuse me, who then re-grants it out to artists and arts organizations.

Columbus is taking a percentage of ticket tax.

So any any entertain any concert that comes, anything except for events from the Ohio State University, basically they get a percentage on that as well.

So most of these cities are able to get um different um, they're able to kind of pull these other tax lovers and other ways of uh generating that kind of public funding.

So those are those are some of the the things that we're looking at here also.

You know, who where does that money go?

Um, and then and you know, we can't just rely just on city funding and private funders.

We're also trying to grow our pool of um folks that that know about what the work that we do, and that when you're supporting us, you're not just supporting us, you're supporting thousands of artists and hundreds of arts organizations.

Most of the money that we that we raise is to be able to re-grant out so that residents and visitors can benefit from the arts and culture um sector here and the amazing work that folks are doing.

So we're trying to get better at telling that story to bring in other contributors.

It's you know, it's basically we have to pull all the levers at this point.

Yeah, corporate dollars where we haven't gone after before, and individuals.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

And those details in our strategic plan are on our website.

So there might be a flyer in there about our strategic plan.

I can't remember, but our website is definitely listed in those packets, and then it outlines our very robust.

You can even look at the feedback we got from residents in that.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for coming.

Thanks for having us, and we appreciate your support.

Thanks.

Yeah.

We just gave one more.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um now calling Joe Glass to update us on the current count uh current project.

Well, thank you again, uh, Kabita and uh Deputy Mayor Emeritus Thomas for the presentation.

We uh very much appreciate it.

Um so at the uh meeting in March, uh the board approved uh $15 million uh in uh short-term notes for uh the stormwater management district.

Um a proposal from JP Morgan Chase was selected uh from about uh 12 uh proposers.

Um and on March 10th, we closed um uh $15 million in North notes with JP Morgan Chase uh for a term of uh three years at a fixed rate of 3.12 percent.

Um so those funds will be available for the stormwater district, and we anticipate issuing long-term debt um before that three-year period to take out the notes.

Um coming up, we uh anticipate issuing uh 40 million dollars in street infrastructure debt um in 2026.

Um we'll have more information on the timing of that um at our at our next meeting.

Um if there's no questions about that, we have uh we'll have a brief market update from uh our financial advisor um Diana Hamilton.

Um I gave you all uh copy of um uh but uh it's it's dicey out there is I guess the short answer.

Um so obviously the the war in Iraq is dominating the headlines, it's certainly driving uh both the bond and the uh stock markets at this point in time.

Uh oil was down this morning, it was below 100, but um Straits of Hormuz, which is if you've looked at any of the pictures, is only 12 miles across at one point.

Uh that's where 20% of all the world's oil um uh flows.

And so um you've got a combination of factors um at work here.

Um there's a lot of concern about the employment picture.

Uh the jobs numbers have now been revised downward um fairly dramatically uh in the last three months.

So we've seen declines, you know, December, January, and February.

Um so we have a weak job market.

Um we actually saw a decline in in the most recent number, but that it was to some extent um it influence but the Kaiser Permanente, which is a huge health care system was on strike, and so uh unfortunately health care has been the largest single source of employment.

Um, as you probably have seen, there have been announcements by numerous firms about layoffs due to uh AI.

We talked about that a little bit um last month.

I think that's still an evolving situation.

Um, but certainly there are firms who are acting uh preemptively.

Overall, it's what we would recall a low hire, low fire environment.

Um you've actually seen some payroll grains that were pretty healthy, um, 3.8% annually.

Um so that's better than better than expected.

Um the unemployment rate has been edging up.

That's 4.4.

Um some of the negative news there is that more people are staying unemployed for longer periods of time.

So um if you've got a job, I would suggest you keep it.

Um but um and then obviously there was there's been year over year a very large decline in federal employment.

That's down 330,000 uh overall since the administration um came.

And then um, so I think there's a lot of uncertainty.

The Fed will be meeting this week, so you won't see any comments.

They'll be out on Wednesday afternoon.

Um Powell, there's not any expectation for a rate decrease with inflation kind of creeping up, and then but there's a lot of concern about what's happening in the labor market and what's noise and what's real, and the same thing.

I think for a while they thought tariffs was going to be transitory in terms of its impact inflation, but now um, for instance, um on the most recent inflation numbers, which were actually somewhat um benign, uh if you took out food and energy, which of course none of us need food or energy, uh inflation was 2.9 percent, but that's before the Iran War.

So when you start to factor in, you know, both uh like for instance food, uh the the uh Iran war is having a tremendous impact on fertilizer prices.

So these are all things that are gonna show up going forward.

So that's I don't I guess I have a pretty picture.

Um there's not an immediate hope for a rate uh decrease at this time.

We did have a nice uh I'm glad to say that we locked in Joe, Karen and I kind of debated we did a rate lock with JP Morgan.

So we actually locked in the interest rate before we closed the transaction, and as luck would have it, I'd like to say lucky versus smart.

Um we kind of hit the low point in the market.

So anyway, that was that was that.

But if you got any questions, I'm sorry.

Well, I guess we're gonna have a new Fed share in May.

I guess could you share like what are some maybe expectations around that?

Um I think there's a fair amount of concern.

In the past, Kevin Harsh actually was nominated by Trump in his first term and served actually as vice chair of the Fed for a period of time.

At that time, he was what they would have called hawkish on inflation, meaning he was much uh less interested in in loosening interest rates, particularly if there were signs of inflation.

Um obviously, as you know, the president's been adamant about lowering interest rates and has tried to go about it about it any way he can, including um uh as you know, charging uh Chairman Powell with trying to investigate him with the Department of Justice, which got overturned last week.

So there's a concern when Powell leaves, but you definitely have splits on the Fed, and I think there's concerns going forward about the ability of the Federal Reserve to maintain its independence, particularly since you've got three more years of the current administration, and Harsh has uh in the past demonstrated or in the recent period demonstrated its loyalty to the president.

So I think there's a concern there.

Thank you.

Is there any other discussions?

That being the case, um can I entertain a motion to close?

So moved all in favor say aye.

Aye.

We're shutting down.

Thank you for all coming.

We appreciate it.

Yes, thank you, Jim.

Good presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.