- It is October 8th at noon. This is the BUIA meeting, Bloomington Urban Enterprise Association meeting
- for October 8th, 2025. Take it away, Heather. All right, welcome everyone on this beautiful day in our
- fine city. It's absolutely lovely fall weather. So thanks for being here, everyone. As is customary,
- we will start with a roll call and around the room.
- Phil, if you'd like to start, please. Michael Hover, BU-EA. Kate Rosenberger, BU-EA. Heather Robinson,
- BU-EA. Jane Coopersmith, BU-EA. Erin Morgan, BU-EA. Della Rosa, BU-EA ESD. Cheryl Billeland, Controller's
- Office. Elisa Spinelli, BU-EA. And we have some guests in the room. John?
- John Zoddy with CDFI from the Bloomington. Davon Woodwell, Wellandale Fellow. Julius Mitchell from the
- Office of the Mayor. Cirilla Helm, Foundation for American Community Schools. Lily Albright, the Director
- of Elementary Education in the American Community School Corporation. And Alex Pratt from the Law School.
- All right. Welcome, everyone. Thank you all again so much for being here.
- We need an approval of minutes from the September meeting. Were there any comments, corrections, questions
- on the minutes? If none, do we have a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Second, please? Second.
- All those in favor? Aye. Oh, we do. Sorry. Yeah, we have online, so we'll need to do a roll call around
- the room, Phil.
- Paul Emerson, yes. Michael Hover, yes. Kate Rosenberger, yes. Virginia Guthrie, I guess, yes. Minnis.
- Oh, of course, yes. Heather Robinson, yes. Jane Kuversmith, yes. Mary Morgan, yes. All right, fantastic.
- Thank you. Dee, it looks like we have some guest presentations today.
- We do. First, we have John Zote from CDFI Friendly to give his report while I get this screen shared.
- No way. He brought snacks. Virginia. Hi, John. I've probably never seen these again, but here you go.
- Good afternoon, everyone. I'm John Zodi. I'm the executive director of CDFI Friendly Bloomington. We
- are a regional organization and I'll say as for those
- at home or online, passing out popcorn that we handed out at our event last night that the BEA helped
- sponsor and support. And local business, Dr. Gutheri, from popcorn with a twist on college.
- We had extra and I brought it with me, so enjoy. Enjoy snacks during my presentation. Anyway. Well done.
- I teed it up. That's right. I just have a short presentation. I know you've got a full agenda, so I'll
- be quick and be happy to answer any questions from you all when I'm finished.
- You can head to the next slide there if you want. So what are CDFIs? Just a reminder, I think most folks
- in this group know, and I want to say hello to Ms. Spinelli online. She was in attendance last night,
- and thank you for coming. So a Community Development Financial Institution or CDFI is a mission-based
- lender whose job it is to help unlock financing for people or places that have not previously had access
- to it in towns and cities and counties all around the United States.
- the CEFI community will assist those who might be lower income, may have troubles starting a business,
- building an affordable housing project, investing in child care. So the CEFIs are a tool in the community
- development toolbox and their $500 billion sector of financing here in our country.
- And so what does the friendly mean a lot of people ask that so we were created to be a hub, so we serve
- a 13 county region here in South Central Indiana Monroe county and 12 counties around it, and so our
- job is to bring.
- investment and interest from CDFIs and other community development investors into this region. My job
- is gonna be a cheerleader for the region and say, hey, look at this housing project, look at this small
- business, look at this childcare facility and come here and think about investing in it. Here are the
- local partners involved, here's what we need to do to try to get this done, can you help us? And just
- to be clear, this is loan financing, it's not grants, but if you can secure the stack of financing that
- is in place for a project,
- that can be enhanced with grants, and maybe that makes the loan a little easier so that there's a financial
- stack that's more palatable for the project. So as a mission-based lender, we do those things, and part
- of that job, and Jane will speak to this as my predecessor, not speak to it, but you'll know this, a
- big part of that job is writing technical
- technical assistance. So as a community development financial institution, we are one, but we provide
- technical assistance. So if we're trying to get a project to financing, we will work with that potential
- borrower and look at their budget, look at their business plan, whatever it is related to the project
- and help them with some technical things with numbers or a communication or how they wanna present this
- project to a potential lender. And so part of that is providing that technical assistance
- We've done 218 hours so far of technical assistance for projects in Bloomington and the region. About
- 60% of that has been with projects within the city of Bloomington. Bloomington's very busy and there's
- a lot going on here. I don't have to tell the city of Bloomington that, but certainly a lot of activity.
- And historically, CDFIs have not always been present. And so a couple of numbers that put that into
- sharp focus is that if you spread CDFI financing out across
- the United States per resident over basically the first 20 years of this century, you're going to get
- a $714 number back on the per head investment from the CDFI. In Indiana during that time, it was only
- $169. In our region, it was $22 a person. Now we're now approaching $50 in this region. That number's
- close to, well,
- Doubled, thereabouts. But that tells you that there are what are called deserts of investment for community
- development across the country. So CDFIs historically have invested very heavily in larger cities. Obviously
- population centers there. There's a lot of business, a lot of housing, that kind of thing. But rural
- areas have been tougher. Smaller cities have been tougher. And it's harder to do stuff there because
- there aren't the programs that exist in smaller communities that exist sometimes in larger cities. And
- so there just isn't the financial base there sometimes.
- trying to get that amped up basically. We are kind of a CDFI desert in southern Indiana and so our job
- to be that hub to bring that investment in is to help help get that number up. So that's what we're
- working to do. So since our creation we've seen about 26 million dollars of CDFI investment, additional
- CDFI investment come into the region to help impact 371
- housing units that's affordable housing created or retained. That's larger multifamily projects, smaller
- multifamily projects. I'll end with the latest project that's been finished. And that totals about $57
- million in project costs. So total project investment in the region since 2018 or so.
- And so we just want to thank the BUEA. You provided us with lending capital as well as financial support
- for operations. I want to tell you that as things get tougher over the next couple of years and we tried
- to be thoughtful about how we're doing that, we're trying to stretch that money over a couple of years.
- It was a $250,000 operational support. And so we're not, we didn't use all that at once. We're not using
- all of it. We're trying to say we're gonna use this much this year and that much. And so as the years
- come, we'll continue to keep you updated about that. But we are trying to stretch those dollars out.
- And in that lending capital, we invested in projects to help in multi-family affordable housing in and
- around the urban enterprise zone.
- So big news this year is we got certified. Jane started this process for us. So we received a technical
- assistance grant a few years ago. That put us on a path to get certified. Before Jane left, she started
- laying the groundwork for that. And I'm not sure you, I do have to point out, if you've dealt with federal
- money and federal regulation, you've laid a lot of groundwork on the regulatory side for us. So you
- put a lot of stuff in place that helped us
- There was a ton of federal stuff that you teed up both for a couple of grants.
- The certification process for the US Treasury CDFI fund is sort of a vetting process. So there are 1,400
- CDFIs in the country that are certified. We became certified in July. And that helps us build relationships
- with banks. It gives us literally that sort of stamp being certified that we've met certain criteria
- as a community development mission-based lending organization. So we were happy that that got done.
- A few months, but move faster than we thought. Will that mean that your friendly status will be, I mean,
- are you going to change the name to be just CDFI? No, I think we're going to stay friendly. We'll always
- be friendly. At least for the time being. So what that means that friendly, we were not set up to be
- a direct lender. We were set up to bring loans in, but because of the capital that was
- provided us by this organization and the Redevelopment Commission, we are able to participate. So part
- of that friendly model is also to help
- put money in, sort of put some skin in the game locally. So we do have those loan funds that we can
- participate with. If we wanted to do direct loans, we would have to engage underwriting services and
- things like that, which we're talking about doing. But right now, we'll be mostly that sort of matchmaker
- plus a partnering lender before we go into direct loans. I liked the way the speaker last night, the
- first woman, I forgot her name.
- Aspen Aspen talked about the complexity of capital stacks for housing development projects having like,
- you know, nine or ten components to them and some of them are big and some of them are small and so
- I think that Just highlighted for me that you having these Capital funds available really can make make
- or break a project if it's not the bulk of the finance sure That's true so
- and sort of part of our technical assistance process helps.
- sort of put that together. So we were awarded a $300,000 technical assistance grant. Jane totally teed
- that up for us because she hired the consultant, started the application before she left and then I
- finished it and we were awarded that last fall and that helped us this year and will help us next year
- and allowed us to hire another staff person. So we have doubled our team, if you will. So this year,
- lots of changes in the
- state and federal levels and advocacy has been a piece of what we do. We're a non-profit so we can't
- make it all of what we do or even a very big percentage, but we have been active in the
- network of CDFIs and other community development lenders around the country and activists to try to
- make sure that we are vocal about the importance of community development funding, both at the CDFI
- fund, which is about a $320 million appropriation every year in addition to money that impacts community
- development otherwise with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and other places. So part
- of this is that when you, sort of our central talking point is that if you look at the
- federal money from the CDFI fund, every dollar you put in federal gets you $8 back out. And this is
- not all public money in projects, right? So that nine or 10 sources that Jane mentioned, some of that
- is private loan money. Some of it is private philanthropy. It's not all public money. And so you're
- bringing in different sectors here to complete a project. So that federal money is an important sort
- of catalyzing resource to help get a project done.
- We're currently in a federal shutdown, but we are still pushing for appropriations to the CDFI fund
- to be made. And that's going well. There's positive direction from where it started. And so one of our
- senators, Todd Young, has been very helpful with keeping that movement going. CDFIs is a good time to
- say they've always had bipartisan support. And so on both sides of the aisle, you get people that understand
- the importance of CDFIs and what they do. So we're happy for that.
- So last year, I showed the picture on the left to you. I looked back at my presentation and said, here's
- the house that's going to be built on the west side of Bloomington. And here's the finished product
- that just finished at the end of July. So this is a seven-bedroom cooperative housing structure that
- just opened. That picture was taken July 31st.
- They're done. And you all helped do this. The city helped do this. This was, again, a partnership between
- our organization, the city of Bloomington. They got a grant from the hand department. And then LEAF,
- the Local Enterprise Assistance Fund, is a CDFI based out of Boston that worked with Bloomington Cooperative
- Living. And this is actually a separate arm called Avalon Community Land Trust. This is a separate legal
- entity for this particular house.
- Still a lot of the same folks involved and sort of the same model of financing that was approached for
- this. So this is a great innovative way to get cooperative housing, not only in Bloomington, but looking
- at other ways to do this around the state. There's what's called the Indiana Cooperative Development
- Center. And Hugh Farrell, who is president of the board for Bloomington Cooperative Living, is also
- the executive director now of
- the Cooperative Development Center statewide. So he is trying to get more cooperative housing in place
- around the state where, unlike Bloomington, there are not those housing protections for rental housing.
- And so this is sort of a self-governed model, which works really well here. But we like to see it other
- places too, because it's a way to approach affordable housing in communities across the state. So this
- is Bloomington Cooperative Living. Bloomington Cooperative Living. This is Avalon Community Land Trust.
- Similarly, it's a- But not affiliated.
- It is affiliated. It's a separate legal structure, but he was still involved in a lot of folks there.
- It just was a separate, it came together in a different way, but as the same model of cooperative housing.
- Exciting because it says seven bedrooms, but it's really seven units. It's seven unrelated adults who
- can live here and it's inherently or sort of organically affordable. So there aren't major federal subsidies
- driving compliance and construction costs up really high.
- It's really a version of something that's just attainable. And so just, yeah, just really inherently
- low, low, low cost for people without having that compliance burden. Yep. That's right. So on West 8th
- Street. So indeed, you can head to the next one there if you want. So that's it. Glad to answer your
- questions. We're trying to amp up our social media. So give us a follow if you can.
- Emma, our program coordinator, is working hard on that. So we really appreciate the support of the BUEA
- and all of you individually in all your own different ways. I've got a lot of folks interested in what
- we're doing, and we appreciate that. So happy to answer any other questions. Or enjoy your popcorn.
- Thanks for coming in. All right. Thank you.
- Thank you, John. I'll leave this for you. You get a popcorn. Thanks, John. Thank you, John.
- Great presentation. Okay, cool. Thank you, John. Next up, we have Lily and Sorola for MCCSC to present
- their proposal for 2526.
- This is email support that we give to MCCSC for various programs, various education programs. A lot
- of new faces. It's been about a year since we were here, so it's nice to see you all.
- I'm Cirilla. I run the foundation for Monroe County and our offices are adjacent. We do see each other
- periodically and bumping. Normally there's an evaluation on last year's. There was a little slowdown
- and the funds being released. So we didn't actually receive the funds until June this year. So with
- education life moves with legislation life moves. So some of the things that
- we have asked for, we cannot purchase. We've had an adoption change in math, so some of that curriculum
- was math related. Or we have found solutions in the, yeah, in the time in between. Yeah, so solutions
- have changed. So our things have changed inside of that. So the schools, the principals and their teams
- are working on what's the best use of all of those resources to make sure that they're buying what they
- need today versus what was asked for a year ago behind that. So, cause they were all out.
- on summer break at the time that that came in. So unfortunately, we didn't get it used, but we're going
- to get it used. Does that make sense for everybody? Can I ask what the time frame originally was? Can
- you remind us when you were expecting to get those funds? It usually arrives in November, December-ish,
- so just some. December, yeah. Wow, OK. Yeah, just some. No fault of date, I would believe. She and I
- were working hard. No, I believe that for sure.
- Yeah, just some unfortunate delays. But like I said,
- It is all there. They are working through that. And with the change in science of reading, some of the
- materials that may have been used last year, we're now looking at some other sources, things that are
- coming through the legislation, because now anything in literacy has to be approved by what's classified
- as science of reading. And Lily's way more attuned to that. So I'm going to flip it over to her. She
- runs elementary.
- Eric Gilpin is our secondary director now for middle school and the only middle school inside of here
- is Tri-North. But Liz can go ahead and speak to that. He's at a conference today and wasn't able to
- make it. Thank you. There's a lot of that today. Eric is getting to, he owes me. That's what I think.
- He needs to skip out on several meetings. No. If you want to go to that last summary page, it might
- just be easier.
- So you're probably all aware, but in the BUEA zone, we have three elementaries, so three of our 14 elementary
- schools within there, and then one middle school. So we're looking at Fairview Elementary, at Summit
- Elementary, and then Trenworth Middle School, and also Templeton Elementary School.
- So they've requested similar sorts of materials here. They kind of could be categorized in a few ways.
- Some materials to support foundational literacy. So I would say at Fairview, that would be the boost
- reading site license.
- the developing decoders, the MyHaggerty subscription. Generation Genius is more related to science and
- social studies, but it's integrated into language arts. So all of those are really language arts and
- literacy initiatives. Down at Summit, you can see UFLY manuals, decodables, novel effect, hand-to-mind
- versus tiles, literacy kits.
- and literacy support for levels and Spanish immersion. At Templeton, those decodables, those are all
- related to literacy foundation, building literacy foundation skills. And then another category you see
- across all of them would be library support and just bumping up the library resources that we have available
- and the titles that we have available to students in our libraries.
- and you see that across all four schools. You can also see their vertical math supplies. We're employing
- some strategies in our math classrooms to get students up and out of their seats and working collaboratively
- in vertical spaces. So when you go into classrooms, you'll see on the wall whiteboards or large post-it paper.
- kits where we're filled with markers and post-it notes and all kinds of things that could be used for
- groups of students to go to that vertical space and learn about math together. And so all schools are
- trying to build up their supplies to support that initiative. So this will be really helpful there.
- You can see that across all the schools or three of the four schools. Summit Elementary was using some
- of their building supplies or building funds to do that.
- And at Tri-North, finally, you can see PBIS support. PBIS is Positive Behavior Support. So they are
- intervention and support. So those are things like prizes and certificates and experiences. And I think
- Fairview has some of that as well. So they have parties.
- every quarter to celebrate and things like that so you're helping defensively. I think last year they
- had a bounce house or you know they've done things like that to try to encourage students to really
- be their best at school. So I think that's a pretty good summary of just general overview and you can
- read more detail about each specific thing that we're requesting in the in the grant proposal itself
- but I want to make sure that I just
- Also, in addition to answering your questions and providing a brief summary, just express how grateful
- we are for this opportunity. Of course, it's not a surprise, but I'm a huge advocate of public schools.
- And I truly believe strong schools equals a strong community. And your investment in our schools,
- I think, supports that belief and philosophy about how we become stronger together.
- I think supporting our children is a community effort and these sorts of partnerships are an example
- of that and in these really difficult times in many ways, but particularly financially, the financial
- landscape is really challenging right now just due to legislative mandates and also declining population really.
- locally and across the country, these sorts of partnerships are critical to our public schools. So just
- want to express my gratitude and acknowledge that as well. Anything you'd like to add, Cirilla, or any
- questions from the group? If you guys have questions. I do, but Heather, do you want to? Oh, yeah, no.
- Thank you so much for being here and for a truly very
- agreed the strong schools are strong communities, certainly strong public schools. So I did just want
- to note that the request from this year is a $25,000 increase over what the past year has been. And
- I just kind of was flipping back and forth. And it looks like each school has some new things that they're
- looking for support. And it seems like that relates to the challenges that are being experienced with
- funding and so forth. So they're really just trying to, in some ways,
- Are they filling some of the need or are they simply trying to augment some things that maybe aren't
- otherwise being addressed?
- Well, one thing is where you see a lot of language arts requests there and next year we have the opportunity
- to present a proposal. I expect it will be a little different because we are one year before adopting
- a new curriculum in language arts. So we're ending our time with one curriculum and getting ready for
- a new. The old curriculum really isn't meeting all the needs of our students. So we have a gap in our
- curriculum that we're trying to fill. So that's where you see all that foundational literacy
- supplies and materials. That's what that's about. All schools are really challenged with finding ways
- to fill that gap and we're working on that. Your support of these schools allows us to redistribute
- funds and to support other schools in other ways too. I suspect next year you'll see a lot less of that
- because we have some really good curriculums that we're exploring and we'll hopefully be able to adopt
- for next year.
- the literacy team set a lot of work on which ones are best because if you just Google decodable readers,
- you're going to find a bazillion of them. All kinds of companies are trying to get in the game, right?
- Yeah, all kinds of them. They do have to be aligned with the science of reading. And so following that
- type of mandate has led us into certain paths with
- who's recommended and who's highly recommended. And the highly recommended, they're not inexpensive.
- When you look at it, you're like, oh my goodness. But what those have done that I thought was
- very interesting, and I'm not really an educator, I just have a strong interest in it, is that what
- those books are doing is they're knowledge base. So as they're breaking down words and decoding, they're
- written to be in a knowledge base
- experience so that you're not just reading about cat, rat, bat in order to break those sounds down.
- They're actually building a knowledge to it that allows them to carry that into maybe social studies
- or science. So that book may be written about a species of animals. So they're getting some level of
- scientific knowledge. So they're
- The structure of that particular developing decodables I found to be like super interesting when you
- look at it and say it's really doing two different things here. It's helping and that's kind of I think
- the challenge with literacy has been is that so much of the model before was just phonics based and
- how do you just break it down but without
- putting an interest in if you're not interested in what you're reading that context that context giving
- them context if they're not interested in it then they're not so like what they will tell us like you
- see the librarians asking for that four thousand if you have let's say a boy who's interested in snakes
- and lizards and all these things if they have a decodable that is hitting that knowledge space of interest
- they're gonna they're gonna take it
- they're going to check that out. And even if they only build one word of vocabulary out of that book,
- that's a success. So it's hard to visualize it because we're all up.
- Go with we're all 45 foot above, right? I'm looking around the room. I don't want to get anybody. It's
- hard to imagine how you learned how to read. Did I not get you? I'm in that. I'm definitely in that
- group. I don't think we want to assume. That's why I was like, maybe.
- So when you think it's hard to remember how you learned, like what did you have and what you had at
- your hands, you're probably the one I knew I would not, I was gonna miss there, yeah, so. So there you
- go, so that's kind of when you think back at it, or if you go in and you do a reading, it's interesting.
- And we hear that, we have a program that's not in this, it's Real Men Read, and we have volunteers from
- across the community going into these kindergarten classrooms, and they're all like, oh my goodness,
- you just completely forget what it's like to be in those rooms.
- To have that age and so helping anything that you do works helps so I think you kind of touched on it.
- I just wanted to know How you anticipate the needs changing going forward with these enormous budget
- cuts? I mean we saw the headline about Reduction six million dollars in MCCS funding and we know about
- the rifts and or not rifts, but we know about the
- not back-filling positions. This money can't hire people, obviously, but I'm assuming you're a very
- busy person these days, Paula. She is. Coming from all directions. It's coming from all directions,
- yeah. The operational side is, you know, it's tough. And when you get into education, a huge chunk of
- our budget is, it's people. So, it's people. Yeah. But we're doing a lot of work.
- you know, obviously in these times you have to really prioritize and be really focused and intentional.
- And I think hopefully, Cirilla has felt a really aligned approach to our requests for funding. And so
- it's definitely, we're not requesting funding for frivolous items here. This is really critical and
- which is both nice, but also tough, right? So.
- We'll see how our request changes next year. It's hard to predict, but I do anticipate it'll be quite
- different. I do have a question. How are you determining which programs to, is it purely based on what
- the educators themselves would suggest?
- Or is there like a template that most of those in Indiana are using? How are you coming up with those
- specific ones? For programs? For like the literacy programs or for any of them? It would be through
- reviewing research and evidence based practices and I mean that's really where it comes from. Teachers
- might have some suggestions from their experience but we have a really strong team in our curriculum
- office that reviews all those resources to make sure they're aligned with research
- evidence-based practices. So, yeah. So, where can we see some of that research? We could provide some
- to you. Yeah. Did you note anything? Did Allison provide any? They usually don't. From other grants,
- we could probably pull some of that that we've used. I mean, it's okay. I mean, you're asking for pennies
- on the dollars that we really need. Yeah. And it would be helpful for some of us to have a better sense of
- what the research is showing us as a result of the cutbacks. Okay, yeah. We can work on that. What would
- be the best way to share that information? Yeah, you can do that. Yeah, a lot of it is going based on,
- a lot of it they're looking at iLearn as well, like where are the holes, which schools have, you know,
- where are those, and the literacy coaches,
- Each school has a literacy coach, correct still? Instructional coach. Instructional coach. So there's
- instructional coaches inside of each of these buildings that are really in the elementary that are really
- looking at where the evaluations are showing weaknesses in individual kids and how they build interventions
- in order to meet them at a one-to-one versus just at a full classroom load. So a lot of this is intervention.
- A lot of these are used for intervention resources.
- but they can also be used for that kid who is ready to pop up a little bit too. And it's all based on
- data. So we have database, really robust database decision making processes where we're doing universal
- screeners and seeing which students are struggling with which things and then diagnostics to see why
- they might be struggling with that thing. And then we have resources and interventions that match that
- specific skill.
- You know, there's that piece, too. What do we need? What are our students struggling with most? And
- then what does the research say is the most effective practice there? And then trying to find a resource
- that matches it. It's quite complex. I always like the teaching reading is rocket science. You know,
- t-shirts are mugs. It is rocket science. It's really challenging, which I think is shown just over the
- many, many, many, many, many years that we've been working on trying to find that silver bullet.
- And it just doesn't exist because we're complex human beings. So yeah, just have to be nimble and responsive.
- Yeah. Overwatching in our state and our nation. Yeah. As more and more groups are expected to pick up
- the slack from what our state legislatures should be doing. Yeah.
- if there are ways we can have research that can help lobby legislators, I'd like to have it. I mean,
- I think there's some wonderful initiatives in town, but every time I support those initiatives that
- really are substitute funding for what the legislature should be doing, I have a little heartburn.
- I'm very supportive of your request. I wish we could give you more. But I think the deeper issue is
- around deep structural chasms. And it is, of course, the poor that suffer the most. So I appreciate
- these three schools. But we're really facing some serious issues. And I appreciate any research you
- could give to help. We'll give that to you.
- Maybe to track a group of children or that's going through the program to see their success with the
- diversion of going through these programs and see the outcome of it. To have that track of where they
- started versus where they ended up. Yeah, certainly. That would be a good research to show.
- I'm sure that's what you would share in an update, right, in the following year? I haven't been a part
- of one of those updates yet. Usually the updates will try to show you if they were looking at literacy
- scores, was there movement, was there any in that category, and a lot of these are kids that are in
- that below proficiency and approaching proficiency groupings.
- So we do have it. Unfortunately, it's not moving as fast as we would all love for it to move. But I
- think that's just a nationwide problem and no one's quite sure why. It's multifaceted. It's multifaceted.
- It's not just what we do inside those six hours that we get on each day. It's beyond that.
- community effort. That's right. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it very much. Yeah.
- Thanks. I think unless the committee has any other questions, thoughts, concerns, comments or whatnot,
- I think we can take a vote on the request today for the $75,000 to support the three schools listed
- here through the MCCSE Foundation. So I would entertain
- Motion to approve the request today. Motion. Second. Second. And then if we could do an around the around
- the room please, Phil. Phil Amerson, yes. Michael Hover, yes. Kate Rosenberger, yes. Jane Coopersmith,
- yes. Virginia Gethier, yes. Heather Robinson, yes. Mary Morgan, yes.
- And there would be no opposed. Thank you. And that was the yes from everybody. Motion carries.
- Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. And that will be reflected in the budget for the 2025-26
- budget, I believe. So the 2026 budget. Yeah, the 2026 budget. Sorry. So will it
- So if the disbursement typically hits November or December, wouldn't it hit this budget then? We usually
- sign the contract in November or December, and then the disbursement happens at the beginning of the
- year, if I'm not wrong. But we'll have it out by January. So was this just a fluke that the? Yes,
- it 100% was. Yeah.
- So I think we, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I think we have some financials to talk about. Is that right?
- Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. I'm Cheryl. I'm thinking, thank you for having all of the financials
- here. Maybe unless others have a preference, we could focus on September because that's going to give
- us the everything. Yeah, actually I thought I would.
- If we like the quarter three, because that goes through September. So that's right on target with what
- you. Yeah. I mean, the overall. Yeah, because we're like, June, July. Yeah, we've got July, August,
- September here and the balance sheets and all of that. So you have that as all the details. I could
- just do like quarter three, which is just really your budget versus actual. Okay.
- September 30th. Do you want me to pull that up? Yeah, if you want to. That would be great. Yeah. Dee,
- where do we look for this? Is this the most recent packet? You want the one? Mm-hmm. I sent an amendment.
- Just the Q3 by input? Yes, I sent it separately from the rest of the packet.
- I just wanted you to have everything. Yeah, there you go. So yeah, but one page earlier, thirty-four,
- we'll get you started there. So for quarter three, basically going through September 30th. On the income side,
- I can't make it any bigger right now. Go ahead. Okay. Yeah. So you've generated $766,622.82, which is
- above your budget, which was $458,780. And that is a direct reflection of Cadillac catching up in previous
- years. So,
- If you took that out, you're right on target of having brought in your income for the year. In addition,
- you had $3,663.71 generated from your CDs. And you'll see that's at the very bottom of this particular
- document. So you need to include that in addition to your regular income. On the expense side,
- Overall, you have expended 40.6% of your budget, which totals $257,354.52. The details of the expense
- comes from your different categories of administration. You've spent 8.3% of your budget.
- And this is low because of the outstanding administrative payment owed to ESD. And we'll get that process.
- So you'll see that go up in the next quarter. In the grants category, you've spent 46.3% of your budget,
- which is $538,500.
- That's your budget and of that you spent two hundred and forty nine thousand three hundred and ninety
- three dollars and fifty two cents Can I just one comment on that and I e-mailed you about this knowing
- that we had the MCCSE foundation Yes, yes, I looked and I saw the hundred thousand dollars there and
- so that raised a question for me So I think that's just an entry error. So technically I
- our total grant expense is just under $200,000. Once that adjustment is made, you are cut. If you get
- down into the details of the different categories of your grants, I will point that out as well. Under
- the arts and culture, you've expended 14.4 percent of your $260,000 budget. Of that,
- Um, you'll see the, like, you haven't spent the a hundred thousand and your arts incubator and then
- nothing out of your, uh, city arts program. So those are like two big things that haven't been expended
- out of, uh, arts and culture. So I'm not sure. We're working on working on those. Okay. So just,
- you know, there's in like today, you've got a lot of other grants that are going to be coming through,
- but, um, this is just where you are right now.
- So then, yeah, the second is education and entrepreneurship. It shows here that you've expended 60.8%
- of your $76,000 budget. So that one is going as planned. Under education grants, I'm showing, and this
- is where the air is showing up,
- I'm showing that you have overspent, but that $100,000 for MCCSC is actually only $50,000, because I
- had it marked as a $50,000 distribution, and then it came in as two individual, there was an error in
- there, so that has to be corrected, so it will show $50,000.
- in your next report. Then under your zone improvements grants, you've expended 48.8% of your $135,000
- budget. So you're halfway there. And again, you probably have more grants probably that are coming this
- month that I've seen come through.
- So overall, you've actually, I think, spent, you've expended better this year than you did last year.
- And your income is perfect, so you're on target. Yeah, so this second page shows your total expense there.
- Yeah, and you'll see that actually when I send us for next month when I'll just do the one for October
- I think it's worth just noting our our total our total total current assets are three point four million
- dollars and
- We've seen about a $540,000 increase just from, I think, July. And I know a big part of that is catalysts
- and whatnot. But we have tipped $3 million. So I think that that's quite a pot of money for us as an
- organization. And just to put some awareness around that, that we have
- quite a few funds there. And this will, you know, ultimately lead into some of our budget discussion,
- of course, and then just what is our future revenue stream look like. And so those will be some discussions
- to come, but I think just, you know, kind of making a point and everyone awareness that we have over
- $3 million in assets at this time. So, all right.
- Thank you. And then I think all of your, they're listed as I think assets, all of your RF loans. I think
- we'll have a discussion with Dee on how that needs to be reflected in this reporting. Right. Because
- if you're going to write some off and just how that needs to be
- Right. Documented and reflected. Right. You know, just go in and say, zero, and I'm out. I mean, because
- it ends up being a loss. Right. So they'll have to move from the balance sheet to the income statement,
- and we'll record it as an expense. Yeah. Yeah. So that process has to happen. And if we wait to do it
- at the end of the year, after you know exactly which one are
- You know do it all at once or if you want to do We can talk about that so Make a request. So where it
- will be Likely looking at a proposed or draft budget at our next meeting and then we had had a number
- of questions come up over the last couple of months about grant eligibility and our bylaws and I know
- there's a bigger conversation about where we're going with revenue and the strategic focus in the group, but
- in the short term, when we're budgeting for 2026, if we could really look, like ground ourselves in
- the bylaws before we start the budget discussions, I'd really appreciate that. And I think doing that
- here in this meeting would be really helpful, because then it's shared with the public. Yeah, absolutely.
- I think we were going to kind of have some of that discussion here. I know we're nearing time, Dee,
- but you had put that in your report, correct? Yeah. So with that, yeah.
- Are there any other questions on financials for this? If none, we do need a motion to approve, but I'd
- like to make a note that the approval would be contingent or reflective of the $50,000 adjustment that
- will be made so that that will be corrected for the next group of financials that we will take a look at.
- And this is for the quarter. This is for the quarter. Yeah. So we have, this will take us through Q3
- September 30, 2025. So I would move approval of the Q3 2025 financials as presented with the exception
- of a $50,000 adjustment in the grants category. Second. And then around the room, Bill. Bill Langerson,
- yes. Michael Hover, yes. Kate Rosenberger, yes.
- Jane Cooper Smith, yes. Virginia Gutierrez, yes. Heather Robinson, yes. Mary Morgan, yes. Molly Benelli,
- yes. Motion carries. Thank you. D, your report. So really quickly, my director's report is pretty short
- because I wanted us to move along. If I can find it.
- So I'll have a couple of outstanding grants for your review for the November meeting. With that, I would
- like to ask the board if we could potentially extend the meeting in November by 30 minutes so we have
- time to take care of outstanding business aside from the budget.
- I would say 30 minutes before the meeting, as opposed to after the meeting, because I know a lot of
- people have to go with two things afterwards. So. That's November 12th. Yes. And you're suggesting we
- start at 1130 and go until one o'clock? Yes. And I'll be out of the country. OK. So are you going someplace
- good? It better be good. It better be good. At all. I'll have to tell you after the meeting. I wish
- you could come. Of course. Yeah, I won't even be in the country.
- I know I'll miss you all too. Is there going to be an issue with, like, do we need quorum to talk about
- that discussion? So is there a better day to move that, like a week ahead or something? Are you available,
- Michael? Yeah, I'll be available. Okay, so I think we might have quorum.
- If everybody else. Are you available, Felisa? You're on mute, hon. You are still on mute, Felisa. OK.
- So we're speaking of the first week of November. November 12. The meeting would be November 12 that
- we are looking for an extension for that meeting.
- There's nothing that prevents me from moving. At 11.30. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I will be fine. I will be
- available. One, two, three, four, five, six. So that still gives us quorum as long as everybody can
- show up. Right. And Brad may potentially be able to. Okay.
- Do we need to vote on that? I think it's fine, right? I don't think it is. Yeah, I don't think we need
- to vote on that. Just send an update to that meeting calendar invite so everyone will remember. Because
- I'll forget if it's not on my calendar. Yes. I will change all of that. Awesome. Thank you very much.
- So as we saw, the Catalan payment is received. I will put proof of it in the packet. Thank you all so
- much for your patience on that. I'm very excited.
- that that has happened. Another thing that I'm working on is a calendar for 2026. So every meeting will
- pretty much be kind of charted out. The thing is that every October, it always ends up being CDFI and
- MCCSE reporting. There are certain months where something is just going to happen, no matter what I
- want to actually happen for the meeting. So I'm going to go with the natural flow and try and get things
- sorted out. I think this will also help with
- grant reviews and things like that, just kind of being able to stack them up in a way that is digestible
- for everyone. And everybody kind of knows what's coming. And it's like, oh, I'm going to miss this meeting
- because of whatever. It will help you all plan your schedules accordingly. And then finally, and I know
- we're very low on time, but I did add the scoring rubric that the board requested.
- This is just to establish a consistent awarding practice and provide clear communication to applicants
- and partners who we work with when they want to tell potential applicants about it.
- Questions I asked were, how will the board use this? How will the board consider granting funds to businesses
- outside of the zone? Or will the board consider granting funds outside of the zone? And if so, what
- are the parameters of qualification? So you asked, and I gave you. So what do you think? I thank you,
- first of all, Dee, for the rubric. I think it's well done, and it will be very helpful.
- There are a couple pieces of discussion in there. But as Jane mentioned earlier, in just all of you,
- I know we've been in discussions for grants that have come before us this year that have been outside
- of the zone. And we've struggled in trying to really decide how we want to treat that. And I think that
- we need to make a solid decision on what
- are we absolutely 100% always sticking to businesses, organizations, nonprofits, whatever in the zone,
- or do we have some piece of that that has some flexibility, which the rubric would help with?
- And if so, how do we define that flexibility? What is that piece? And so I know we don't have a lot
- of time today, and I don't expect that we'll fully get this answered, but I'd like to at least start
- that discussion
- and get thoughts about that. I know we struggled with the Hazen Insurance grant that was before us.
- And one of the main factors was it was just a business outside of the zone. And we still have First
- Christian Church, which is right on the line.
- of the zone. And so we've had some precedent, I will say, where we funded something, Fourth Street Arts
- Festival, again, on the line of the zone. But the huge impact, the economic impact that it has to the
- zones, the impact that it has on the residents and businesses of the zone. So I would like to be quiet in
- hear from the others on the board. I'd love to hear some thoughts.
- TF, Alex, before we have our, and I'll also be quiet, because I do a lot of talking, but Alex, have
- you done a legal review of our bylaws? Are we restricted? Are we able? Are there any gray areas in terms
- of whether we're funding outside of the zone? So I was thinking it might be good to do a legal round
- on that subject, and I can look at case law, I can look at statute, it's going to have a few days, and
- I can look at the bylaws and kind of like
- I do have a general question quickly. I think it seemed it would be a little oppressive possibly for
- the organizations or businesses, but is there a way to request that everyone show their impact
- to the resident, I don't even know how that could be feasible. Because again, sometimes it's sensitive
- to ask those questions, especially, let's say, for a first Christian church. If someone is coming and
- has a need and is not necessarily in the zone, you're not going to turn away if they have a need, right?
- So there's service to a person, but they may not be living in the zone. But I guess I'm trying to ascertain
- whether there's a way to. Well, we do have some sort of precedent for that because of our support of Ivy Tech.
- because they're clearly outside of the zone. But when they report, they show us how many zone residents
- they've helped or whatnot and the effect that has, the impact that it has provided. So there is some
- precedent for that. But when you start talking about like, they track numbers because they are an educational
- institution. But when we're talking about nonprofits, businesses, that's some
- different and potentially dicey territory. So, um, it's not that we haven't asked. It's that we've only
- asked certain institutions that actually just formally carry those numbers. I don't, not the nonprofit
- status isn't what makes it dicey. It's that, okay, Ivy tech has access to data that clearly demonstrates
- their zone impact and they can, can,
- kind of segregate that and show that they're targeting their activities in the zone, but like
- Other nonprofits might not be that sophisticated. They just might not be able to do it. And it may not
- be quantifiable in some ways. So if First Christian Church is helping someone, maybe, I don't know all
- of the programs that they offer, but maybe the unhoused population or others in need, their services
- provided to them are then directly impactful to the businesses downtown or in the zone that would be
- adjacent to that that are in the zone. Because then, you know,
- Just using that as an example, I'm not trying to stereotype or anything, but if someone gets a meal
- there or gets some services or help, then it's less likely to maybe those challenges may be less likely
- to have an effect on maybe businesses or those in the zone. That's hard to quantify. That's information
- that's hard to say.
- I think this looks good though and I think like getting that memo from Alex would be good too because
- I think like just I think the rubric does it looks great and looks like it like follows like the legal
- definitions for BUEA already but I think just like diving a little deeper with Alex would be good on
- that. So I'm gonna put this topic at the top of the agenda for the next meeting so we can get through
- it and move forward.
- Excellent. Thank you, Dave, for your work on that. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Melissa.
- Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Have a great week.