Calling the Winnipeg City Commission work session meeting in order May 14th 226

mayor and commission

stops good afternoon.

I speak loud, I probably don't need a mic, but it's not recording recording.

Okay,

now we are now live.

You've got one down there.

Okay, as long as everybody's got a mic somewhere.

Okay, good afternoon again.

Um we're so excited to present um all the efforts related to grants in our department and working with Hale Innovation who is here.

Um I'd like to take a moment to introduce Lee Hale from Hale Innovation, and if you can introduce your staff.

Yeah, um we have uh Hilary Wares and Fatima Cugley sitting with us here today.

And um I'll be mentioning a new addition to our team, but certainly a face that you know within Winter Park.

Um so we start this this um presentation with what we envision our grant pursuits as, which is building a resilient future through strategic grant funding.

So with that and why this matters, um, it was critical to centralize the grant process, being able to centralize that, you have more capabilities of first persons being at the helm and be able to consolidate some of the efforts and and programming citywide.

So definitely consolidating that and centralizing it was a critical point for the city of Winter Park, and we're gonna show you the return on the investment with that.

Um, but those components um deal with increasing funding opportunities.

We coordinate funding and unfunding projects together with um the CIP program as well as all the different departments.

Um we're able to pursue larger scale grants when we work as a partnership.

So if we have a stormwater project that marries up to a wastewater project, we're able to combine those um with greater strength.

And again, strength and strategic planning and outcomes, which you'll you'll you'll certainly see.

Um our new grants position, we have Joe Smurdy.

Um having this is very essential to the city.

Um we were really able to accelerate this year alone on our grant pursuits and and returns.

My presentation will be more overall beyond the fiscal year.

Lee's going to um provide some more return on investments for um our direct work that we've been doing since Joe's come on board.

Um but it's critical to have a central port of court point of coordination because grants are a lot of work with a very short deadline, and I can't appreciate the different departments when we ask for something, we're getting it pretty promptly so we're able to get meet these deadlines.

Um, and trust me, it's data intensive, paperwork intensive, even Randy trying to catch them at you know, after hours.

Hey, I need a signature.

So all of this is a collective work buff for all of us.

Um, and it also builds competitive applications and partnerships, um, having a cohesive consolidated team.

So with that, as we have a one-team, one goal um motto by working across our different departments, we're able to align our priorities and maximize funding.

We identify more funding opportunities as we brainstorm and collaborate.

We increase the scale and impacts of our awards and develop a sustainable result for City of Winter Park, which is crucial.

Um with our efforts, you do have a master plan that was completed.

That's the document that was um provided to you.

Uh part of that effort was meeting with each department and finding out specifically what is their priorities, what are their projects.

So we have a go-to manual when a grant opens up.

We're not starting from scratch.

We already have cut sheets ready to go to say, okay, we're gonna move with this grant when this particular port portal opens up, and it makes it more efficient.

Um, and just our strategy goals kind of behind what I just said, um, it increase grant awards with success rates by doing so.

It expands to regional states and federal pursuits by being highly organized.

Um and a critical thing for some grants is there's a checkbox, and some of these checkboxes are very important as far as waiting, uh waiting, like the weight of your grant and its successibility through their portals.

One of the check boxes is is it shovel ready?

And so a lot of the times we do work to have some projects that are shovel ready to go so we can meet those criteria on certain projects.

Um and of course, aligning projects with our learn long-term city priorities.

So we do meet with Peter and his team up against the CIP and seeing where we can get grants and reduce that overall budget, benefiting everybody in the city of Winter Park.

Um so our expected outcome as our goal for grant management is a greater return on investment, reducing department workload.

So instead of David or now Jason working on grant documents, we're centralized.

We have Joe and I that can work on these documents together so the other teams can focus on their work and what needs to be done.

Um increase capital project funding and building a stronger and resilient community within Winter

Park.

So over the course of a little a little more, a little beyond our fiscal year, you'll see some different numbers.

Collectively, um underneath our our our new restructure of having grants within our department.

We've um since the NRCS hurricane funds that came in in about 2023, we've raked in about 42.5 million dollars.

So all the grants that you see here are acquired grants from NRCS to the nano bubble that you will see coming to you soon.

Um we had a huge SRF wastewater grant to the tune of 19 million dollars just awarded with the with the grateful efforts of Hale Innovation and a slew of other grants you could read it here.

Um even some of our microgrants we've added.

What's pending right now is uh we did um submit for Hurricane Milton two HMGP fund um two HMGP programs, which is um rectifying some of the stormwater impacts on the MLK park and also the lift station um bypass pump structures and you're gonna see a duplicate here.

This is this is the fun world of grants.