# Budget and Finance and Economic Development Committee on 2024-09-24 1:00 PM - September 24, 2024 > Auto-transcribed civic record · Committee · September 24, 2024 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/6229 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/6229?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2024-09-24 - **Body**: Committee - **Last revised**: March 29, 2026 - **Length**: 18,236 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed by OpenAI Whisper-1, with speaker labels folded in from Granicus closed-captioning. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude Sonnet. Speaker labels and verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Budget, Finance & Economic Development Committee convened on September 24, 2024, at 1:00 PM with James Brown presiding as the meeting chair. The committee addressed four agenda items during the session, focusing primarily on financial updates and project reviews relevant to the city's economic development initiatives. The committee took one formal vote during the meeting, approving the August 27, 2024, Committee Summary. The remaining three agenda items were presented for informational purposes, including the Monthly Financial Update for August 2024, a Lexington Downtown Projects Update, and a LexArts Finance and Equity Review. These presentations provided committee members with current information on the city's financial status, ongoing downtown development initiatives, and the financial and equity considerations related to LexArts operations. No public comments were received during this meeting, allowing the committee to focus entirely on the scheduled agenda items and staff presentations. The session served as an important briefing opportunity for committee members to stay informed on key financial matters and development projects affecting the city's economic landscape. ## Attendance All committee members were present for the September 24, 2024 meeting. **Present:** • James Brown • Dan Wu • Chuck Ellinger • Hannah LeGris • Liz Sheehan • Preston Worley • Fred Brown • Whitney Baxter • Jennifer Reynolds • Kathy Plomin • Tayna Fogle • Shayla Lynch • Brenda Monarrez • Denise Gray • Dave Sevigny **Absent:** None **Late:** None The meeting achieved full attendance with all 15 committee members participating. ## Votes and Decisions The Committee took one formal vote during the September 24, 2024 meeting. **Approval of August 27, 2024, Committee Summary** [timestamp: 00:00] Council Member Coleman moved to approve the Committee Summary from the August 27, 2024 meeting. Vice Mayor Wu seconded the motion. The motion passed by voice vote with no opposition recorded. ## Budget and Financial Actions The Committee reviewed one significant financial item during the September 24, 2024 meeting. **Grant Funding** • The Committee considered a $500,000 grant for the Cultural Pass Program to be awarded to LexArts. This grant represents a substantial investment in cultural programming within the community. *Note: Specific resolution numbers and transcript timestamps were not available in the provided meeting materials for this financial action.* ## Contested Items The Committee meeting on 2024-09-24 featured one primary area of contention regarding LexArts' financial management practices. **LexArts Financial Management** Community members raised concerns about LexArts' handling of payments to partner organizations, specifically citing delays in disbursing funds. The opposition focused on what attendees characterized as slow payment processes that were affecting collaborative relationships with other arts organizations in the community. The nature of the disagreement centered on the need for improved financial management systems and more timely payment procedures. Community members expressed frustration with the current pace of financial transactions, suggesting that the delays were creating operational difficulties for partner organizations that depend on timely funding to maintain their programs and services. The discussion highlighted broader concerns about LexArts' administrative efficiency and its impact on the local arts ecosystem. Partners and community stakeholders emphasized that reliable and prompt financial transactions are essential for maintaining strong collaborative relationships and ensuring the continuity of arts programming throughout the region. While specific individuals involved in raising these concerns were not identified in the available data, the opposition appeared to represent broader community sentiment regarding the organization's financial practices. The outcome of this discussion and any specific actions or commitments made by LexArts leadership in response to these concerns were not detailed in the provided information. This contested item reflects ongoing community engagement with LexArts' operational practices and demonstrates stakeholder investment in ensuring the organization's effectiveness in supporting the local arts community through reliable partnership arrangements. ## Approval of August 27, 2024, Committee Summary [timestamp: 00:00] The committee considered approval of the meeting summary from their August 27, 2024 session as the first item of business. James Brown presented the item to the committee for their review and approval. The committee approved the August 27, 2024 meeting summary without recorded discussion or amendments. No concerns were raised regarding the accuracy or completeness of the summary document. The motion to approve the August 27, 2024 committee summary was successful, allowing the committee to proceed with the remainder of their agenda items for the September 24, 2024 meeting. ## Monthly Financial Update – August 2024 [timestamp: 00:00] Commissioner Erin Hensley presented the monthly financial update for August 2024 during the Committee meeting on September 24, 2024. The presentation revealed significant financial challenges for the organization in the early months of the fiscal year. Hensley reported that the organization is currently facing a $12 million deficit for the first two months of the fiscal year. This substantial shortfall represents a concerning financial position as the organization moves through its budget cycle. The presentation was informational in nature, with Hensley providing the Committee with an overview of the current financial status. The update covered the financial performance through August 2024, giving Committee members insight into revenue and expenditure patterns during this period. This agenda item served as a regular financial briefing to keep the Committee informed of the organization's fiscal health and budget performance. The $12 million deficit figure highlights the financial pressures the organization is experiencing early in the fiscal year, which may require attention and potential corrective measures as the year progresses. The Committee received this information without taking any formal action, as the item was designated as informational only. ## Lexington Downtown Projects Update Hannah Iden provided a comprehensive presentation on the Downtown Masterplan, covering both its historical development and future strategic direction [timestamp: 00:00]. The presentation focused on the evolution of Lexington's downtown development efforts, with Iden emphasizing the importance of community engagement throughout the planning process. She outlined the masterplan's approach to strategic development, highlighting how community input has shaped the current vision for downtown revitalization. Iden discussed the various components of the Downtown Masterplan, detailing how the plan addresses both immediate development needs and long-term growth objectives. The presentation covered the historical context that led to the current planning initiatives and explained how past community feedback has been incorporated into the strategic framework. The update served as an informational briefing for committee members, providing them with current status information on downtown development projects and the overall masterplan implementation. Iden's presentation outlined the coordinated approach being taken to ensure that downtown development aligns with community priorities and strategic objectives. This agenda item was presented for informational purposes, allowing committee members to stay informed about the progress and direction of downtown development efforts. The presentation reinforced the commitment to community-driven planning and strategic development in Lexington's downtown area. ## LexArts Finance and Equity Review [timestamp: 00:00] Ame Sweetall presented an overview of LexArts' current financial status and ongoing initiatives to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion within the organization's programming and grant distribution processes. The presentation covered LexArts' financial operations, including revenue streams, expenditure patterns, and budget allocation strategies. Sweetall provided details on the organization's grant processes, explaining how funding decisions are made and distributed among various arts programs and organizations throughout the community. A significant portion of the presentation focused on LexArts' efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the arts sector. Sweetall outlined specific initiatives and programs designed to ensure more equitable access to arts funding and opportunities for underrepresented communities and artists. The presentation served as an informational update to committee members, providing transparency into LexArts' operations and strategic priorities. Committee members received comprehensive information about how the organization manages its financial resources while working to address equity gaps in arts funding and programming. This agenda item was structured as a presentation format, allowing Sweetall to deliver a thorough overview of LexArts' financial health and equity initiatives without requiring immediate action or decision-making from the committee. The session provided committee members with current information about the organization's operational status and commitment to inclusive arts programming in the community. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (0-0): Approval of August 27, 2024, Committee Summary --- ## Full transcript People keep talking about me, baby. They say I'm doing you wrong. Well, don't you worry, don't worry. No, don't worry, mama. Because I'm right here at home. You're the cutest thing I ever did see. Really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree. Lovey, dovey, lovey, dovey, lovey, dovey all the time. Come on, baby, now, I'll show you a good time. Bye, bye. When the rain is blowing in. When the rain is blowing in your face. And the whole world is on your case. I could offer you a warm embrace. When the rain is blowing in. When the rain is blowing in your face. And the whole world is on your case. When the rain is blowing in. When the rain is blowing in. When the rain is blowing in. When the rain is blowing in. When the rain is blowing in. When the rain is blowing in. When the rain is blowing in. When the rain is blowing in. Budget finance and economic development committee for September twenty fourth. Twenty twenty four at one PM. Twenty twenty four committee summary. Our motion was made to approve a council member Coleman and seconded by vice mayor Wu. Are there any questions or corrections. Hearing and seeing none. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Are there any that oppose. That motion passes. The next item on our agenda is the monthly financial update. So with that I'll turn it over to Commissioner Hensley to provide us with an update. Good afternoon everyone. We are going to be discussing the report through August today. I also wanted to give a quick update. We have auditors in this week. Our new audit firm Crossland is with us. We haven't necessarily introduced them to you all just yet but it's going very well. We have a brand new team this year and we also have a representative women owned business as part of our audit team this year. So we started working with them and it's going really well. They're just getting to know us and we're getting to know them and this is their this is kind of their long stint on site with us so they've done some preliminary work already and we're really getting into the meat of the work right now and they'll be with us for several weeks going into the real bulk of the audit right now. So we're just getting into that as we get ready to go on fall break. They'll be really kicking up the real kind of meat of the audit work. So for the month of August, we're only two months into the year, we're showing a deficit for the two months of about $12 million. We were about $9 million at the same point last year. And that is to be expected because we don't really have a whole lot of revenue coming in at this point in the year. Wes is going to go into where we are on some of the revenue numbers and Melissa is going to go through some of those expenses. But just as a reminder, we don't take our overall budget and divide it by 12, either revenues or expenses, so this is where we expect to be. We are still closing out some of those items for audit so we're moving making sure that expenses belong in the appropriate period so things are still a little bit in flux moving back or forward depending on where they need to be either in last year or this year. So you will see a little bit of movement potentially. But things are going very, very well. And we're going to talk through where we are on some of our revenue and expense items. So just the one slide for me today. I'm going to kick it over to Wes. Good afternoon, committee members. Looking at the revenues to budget for the first two months of the year, we see a mixed bag in our top four, payroll withholdings, underperforming where we anticipated to be this part of the budget. It's really with just a couple months, it's really hard to know if that's any sort of trend without a full quarter. It's something to be mindful of as we go in and start to see some more months of the year. It's not too far off so, you know, one really good month could turn that around. But it's just something to be aware of as we move through. Net profits, we did do a slightly adjusted budget this year on the front end just because we did see some deficits last year that carried through most of the year. We have seen some performance a little bit stronger this year anyway. And so we're seeing that reflected in larger collections to budget. We'll start to see that number probably rise a little bit as we get into our September and October collections when we get extended returns from businesses who extended their tax return in March and April. Insurance, we have on the budget side, it's underperforming. We have seen growth. It's not too far off. That's something that we'll watch. But when we see the actuals year over year, you'll be able to see that in that category at least, we are seeing a pretty good amount of growth. And so it's just not capturing everything. And so we're seeing that reflected in these first few months of the year. And franchise fees, we've seen the benefit of people using more utilities through the summer. And so that's benefiting that revenue line as well. Outside of that, the other areas where we're seeing some better collections than budget are in our services. A lot of that is really driven by our EMS fees. That's something we continue to see perform well as we talked about not too long ago. Looking year over year, you can see whenever it compares year over year in payroll withholdings, we're fairly close. That's not that different. So it's really just trying to recapture that level of growth we saw last year and then exceed that a little bit. You can see where net profits, those collections have been strong coming in through the first part of the year. I will say that one of the things we've done is moving most of our processes to lockbox processing so we get things in more quickly. We saw the benefit of that in the spring. We're still seeing the benefit of that. So we'll see some of that benefit continue through the year as we just are able to do more in less time. The insurance growth here, you can see year over year at 6.5%, that's some good solid growth. And as long as we see that carry through the rest of the year, we should be fine to budget and franchise fees as well. On charges for service, that's the other line where you don't necessarily see it match on the budgeted side. And a lot of that has to do with, one, excess fees in collections. We saw a large amount last year. We haven't seen this year. And then some of our detention center bed fees and detention center lines, they're just underperforming where they were in prior years. So that's lowering that a little bit. I'm happy to take any questions that councilmembers have. Otherwise, I'll turn it over to Director Luecker for the expenses. Okay. It looks like we've got Councilmember Fred Brown signed up for questions. Councilmember? Thank you, Chair. Have you got another presentation? Or just final questions? Director Luecker is going to present on expenses. Okay. I'll wait until after that. I want to talk to the commissioner. I have a couple of questions with the commissioner. Okay. Unless we have Councilmember Sheehan. Okay. Thank you, Chair. Director Holbrook, for the short-term rental licenses, I know that those are regulatory fees, so they have to go back into the regulation of short-term rental licenses. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. I know that those are regulatory fees, so they have to go back into the regulation of short-term rentals, but does that show up in the other license and permits line, or where would that go? It would show up in that. We have those. Because they're an annual license, they are renewed every year in January, and so we won't start to see. Other than the ones that have trickled in as they've gotten approved, we won't see those come in until January, and then we'll see it in that other licenses and permits line. The rest of those licenses and fees is made up of several different categories, regulated is one of them, so we'll see that captured there. And then any fines for violations would be in that fines and forfeitures line, then? We would see those. Does that go somewhere else? Yes. We would see those in the fines line. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember. Next we have Councilmember Savigny. Thank you, Chair, for recognizing me, and thanks for the presentation. Just a quick one. Payroll withholding, and I know you basically do a seasonal budget, when is the it seems like it would be the least seasonal of all the things. Is there a season that has a higher number, or is it pretty much a straight line? It's not. Our strongest season that we typically see is the third quarter, so January through March. You see a lot, I think, related, well, bonuses related to people maybe taking extra jobs during the holidays or just companies that are ramping up during that time, so you do see Q3 for us ends up being a stronger quarter on average versus every other quarter. Yeah. I'm just a little bit concerned that already in two months we're just kind of down, and that's going to be our biggest number, so but you feel confident with? We monitor collections in our top four daily, and some of our deadline payments for this month have come in a little bit stronger than we've expected, so it's not the variance in August doesn't necessarily worry me based on what we've seen for this month. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. That's all we have to sign up for U.S. Director Luecker. Good afternoon. So on the expense side, you can see we've got some savings in personnel that is primarily due to full-time positions, and we have some savings in overtime. Being staffed at the jail has helped reduce their overtime spend, and so we're spending a little bit less than what we had anticipated there. In the operating, we've got a few accounts that we've noticed have a large variance. August 30th was on a weekend, so I think there were some payments that would have been made in August where it was on the weekend. It didn't hit until later. And so we only have fire hydrants in for one month instead of two, and that's a half-million-dollar variance just in that one line. So you can see how one line, one payment can really shift our variances there. We've got savings in professional services. We've got savings in our software account, which computer services informed us last week. They're waiting on several invoices from the vendors for various softwares that we have throughout the government. So we'll continue to watch that and check and make sure that we're getting our invoices and we're getting paid. There was also a delay with the schedule and the breaks with getting agreements passed so that we could get agreements with vendors in place to make payments. We're waiting on some things to come back from vendors as well, agreements. So there are several things that we discussed with divisions that we know are outstanding, budgeted to hit in August and haven't hit yet. Some have already hit in September. Some they're still waiting on. And then if we go down to our debt service, that's for one bond payment for a particular bond issue. I think it was a timing issue with whenever the payment hit versus what it was on the schedule. And then the partner agencies, that variance is spread among several partner agencies so it's not isolated with one particular one. I would like to point out that last line there, right above the line, the capital, you can see we're spending faster than what we had anticipated spending there. I think this is the first month in many, many months that we've stood up here that we've been spending ahead on our capital. Usually our capital is a little bit slower. So that is, that's a good thing. We're spending our money. We're getting our projects going. So did want to point that out. And then on the transfers down there, you'll see a large variance. There was a four and a half million dollar transfer that was budgeted to happen in August. The budget amendment just got approved in September. And so that just happened. So you'll see that when that variance will shift greatly just with one line item when we show you the September numbers. So overall, we're under budget according to the first two months but we know there are some variances there that some will go away as things get processed. Moving to how we were compared to last year, we are spending more in our top three categories with the personnel, insurance, and operating. The debt service, we're a little bit slower on the payments there but we, you know, those are done on a schedule. And then partner agencies, we've got a little bit of variance there in our capital. So overall, we're doing well. We're spending more in our big areas than we were last year. We're just still spending under budget for the first two months. So we'll be happy to take questions. All right. Thank you, Director. We've got Councilmember Fred Brown signed up. Yes, I wanted to just ask a couple questions for the commissioner. It has to do with the audit. Are we still have a deadline on the component units to get their audits in by September 30th? We do. I'm not sure that there's a September 30th. It may be a little bit later than that. But it's certainly before we issue. Yeah. And the new auditing firm, what's their timetable and the timing of the audit? Have we given them a close date as to proximity of when we want the reports? Yeah. We will try and finalize our audit by September 30th. And then we'll get the audits in by September 30th. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So we will finalize our audit by middle of December so that it's presented to you all in January just like we have the last several years. OK. Well, you realize that's probably a month later than it should be. But I think history in the past few years, you all stepped that up. We used to get that audit thing by the end of November. Then we could make some adjustments or we could see what our fund balance is. But I guess we'll still follow through with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll follow through. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We will still have the fund balance conversation October 29th. Yeah. So we should have sufficient information, you think, on that number? Yes, sir. Absolutely. OK, great. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. We did. We accrued back last year almost an entire payroll, which was roughly $8 million, that got moved back. And so we had almost a full two weeks in this year that was not in last year. So that's why it looks so much larger this year than last year. OK, great. That was my question. Thank you, Chair. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Commissioner, we had a conversation recently, and we talked about a budget amendment that may come forward moving EMS revenues forward. Yes. Where would that appear on this report when we do that, and what would it look like? So when we bring forward that budget amendment, which will actually be in the next cycle, that will increase EMS revenue. So that would be in this charges for service line item would show the increase for revenue, the offsetting expense, which it would be an unbalanced VA because we're only proposing to bring on the additional EMS personnel for a partial year. So the offsetting expense would be in the personnel line items. So you'd have the revenue over in the charges for service and then the expenses over in personnel, and then the remainder we had proposed or we had suggested addressing the ordinance for the economic contingency since that's a one-time increase from the 60,000 a month to the 75,000 a month. That's 300,000. If that is in there, that will be off of here. But then the remainder would be a fund balance. So that's where those pieces would show. So it would show in the charges for service as well as personnel line. Correct. Okay. And then on the cash flow variance expenses, actual to budget, that big increase, and that was because we did a VA to move 4.5 million from the beginning of the fiscal year to the end of the fiscal year. So that would be a 4.5 million from where to where? For the transfer? Yeah. So we had proposed moving this was for the facility. We had talked about a training facility, reserving funds for that. And it was sitting in the general services commissioner's budget. The facility that we were reviewing did not move forward. So we did not have to move it via purchase order. We had proposed putting that into a capital fund. So that moves from our 1101 fund to our 1105 fund. So that transfer would move it off of the general fund and over to the capital fund. So that's where that transfer would move that to. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, commissioner. Are there any other questions? Seeing any. Not seeing any. Thank you, commissioner. Thank you. All right. Committee members, we'll go back to our agenda. The next item on the agenda, well, just for the ARPA financial update is in your packet for information only. The next item on our agenda is the Lexington downtown projects update. This item was referred to committee from council member Legree. So I'll turn it over to you, council member, to introduce this item and the presenter. Thank you. All right. Thank you, chair. Thank you all. Thank you, colleagues, for your time and attention as we engage with our downtown master plan concept and provide a little bit more history and background for what a new downtown master plan could entail. As a quick reminder, during our spring budget deliberations, we decided to revisit the downtown master plan for our fall fund balance decisions which, as was just mentioned, will be in late October. Thank you to chair brown for the opportunity to get into more detail today and to receive input from the committee and from our colleagues as a whole. And though our office is presenting this plan today, we know that downtown is part of a number of council districts and is also vital to the work of our entire city. So you'll hear more shortly, but we believe that a downtown master plan is essential as we look toward a future that includes a thriving, vibrant downtown that is able to help meet the economic, housing, professional, municipal, tourism, entertainment, and cultural needs of our community. And a plan of this sort helps us to guide future development, indicates a proactive vision for potential investors, and supports the overall vitality of our city. And so that you all are aware, it will include robust community engagement, and it's an opportunity to involve residents, business owners, and stakeholders in shaping the future of downtown. And finally, thank you to Hannah Iden, my legislative aide, for her hard work on this presentation and for all of the experts who have provided feedback and assistance thus far from the commissioner of planning and his team to the chief development officer, to our downtown retail group, and I thank you. Rachel is here, and to the DLP and the DLMD members. And I also want to say a big thank you to my colleagues who have provided helpful feedback and perspective on the objectives of this plan. You're all's meaningful input thus far, and as it will be on into the future, is essential to getting us here. So thank you, Ms. Iden. Go ahead. Hello. I'm Hannah Iden, the legislative aide for the third district, and today we'll be looking at the history and components of a downtown master plan, we'll be looking at what a new downtown master plan could mean for Lexington, and we'll be discussing some potential next steps. I'm first going to start with a brief definition before I jump into the history. A downtown master plan is a long-term strategic guide that outlines a vision for a city's future. Lexington's last downtown master plan, a blueprint for the future was completed in 2006. This effort was sparked by the success of the 2002 downtown college town master plan, my apologies, the 2002 college town master plan, which revitalized the area between the University of Kentucky and downtown. That success inspired the business community and city to develop a better downtown master plan. In 2008, the downtown streetscape master plan was developed to guide the implementation of the 2006 master plan recommendations, and the 2010 equestrian games gave the city a big incentive and motivation to put many of those recommendations into action because the city was on the world stage. The downtown development commission adopted the 2006 master plan recommendations, and that agency, they oversaw the acquisition and financing of any public project, which was undertaken by the urban county government, and that agency no longer meets. One thing to note, the 2006 and 2008 plans were not adopted by the planning commission as an element of the comprehensive plan, and no action was taken by council. The purpose of the 2006 and 2008 plans was to enhance Lexington's urban environment through strategic land use, infill development, transportation, preservation, and infrastructure improvements. Over the past decade, we've seen significant changes in downtown Lexington, from the development of town branch commons in Gatton Park to the new central bank center, updated Fayette County public schools facilities, to the construction of a new community center, north limestone, the list goes on and on. These changes have reshaped downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods. As we plan for the future, it's crucial to consider these changes and think about downtown as a vibrant neighborhood, business district, and hub for tourism and commerce. A downtown master plan helps us understand the shifts in our city as a whole. A downtown master plan is a strategic plan that's building a path forward that promotes a positive and sustainable evolution of Lexington. This plan will signal to businesses, nonprofits, educational institutions, investors, and residents that we are committed to investing in and maintaining the vibrancy of our downtown for years to come. There are many components that go into this plan. Community engagement is key. Lexington is lucky to have so many groups and organizations invested in our downtown, and as special thanks, there are many of those people here in the room today. There's the downtown Lexington management district, the downtown Lexington partnership, the downtown retail group, the downtown safety work group, and that's just a few of them. We are committed to developing a plan that works for our entire city. Quality of life is also a big theme, and that means thinking about all of the factors that contribute to a vibrant downtown and how to best utilize the space that we have. These include transportation and mobility, urban design and streetscape, housing and community services, historic preservation, sustainability and innovation, and cultural and arts development. Finally, the plan will outline how we'll bring all of these elements together through careful implementation and phasing. To dive a little deeper, a downtown master plan will give us a clear understanding of the true economic impact of our downtown area. Downtown is the heart of our city, and its vibrancy affects not only the businesses and residents in our city, but also our city's economic potential will allow us to strategically invest in ways that drive growth and benefit all Lexitonians. Housing is one of our city's biggest needs, and this plan will help identify how we can add housing stock at all levels, from affordable housing to student housing, housing for young professionals or grad students or spaces for those looking to downsize and move downtown. Housing is one of our city's biggest needs, and this plan will help identify how we can make downtown our home. Another crucial outcome of this plan will be to define what we mean by downtown. Currently there are at least four different versions of maps, all with a different version of downtown. By creating one cohesive plan that clearly outlines our downtown core with rings or bridges, we will be able to identify what we mean by downtown. Lastly, the plan will help us figure out the how-tos of the recommendations. We know that it often costs more to undertake projects downtown than in other parts of our city. This could mean we need to look at offering tax incentives or special permitting to encourage and fill development and revitalization, and this plan will help us do just that. Downtown Lexington has become a regional destination, a place where people want to live, work, and play. To maintain this momentum and continue growing, we need to be intentional about how we plan for the future. As we've seen, there have already been significant public and private investments in downtown, and there are many more projects on the horizon. We need to find the right tools in place to guide growth in a way that complements and enhances what's already here. This is where the downtown master plan comes in. It's not just about shaping individual projects, but about creating a cohesive vision that ensures new developments, enhance our urban core, fit into the broader fabric of our city, and contribute to a thriving downtown that serves as a hub and center. As we celebrate our 25th anniversary, a very exciting milestone, this downtown master plan will serve as a visionary guide. It will lay the foundation for how we shape the next 250 years, ensuring a vibrant and thriving future for our city. For a final slide, let's walk through some next steps for moving this downtown master plan forward. First, we'll convene with LFUCG staff, downtown stakeholders, and organizations. As we've said, the more groups that are involved and invested, the stronger this plan will be. Council members will be vital in the consensus building and bringing stakeholders to the table. Next, an RFP will be issued to find the right consultant. This consultant will take on data collection, conduct research, and provide feedback. Once the plan is developed, the intention would be to incorporate that as an element of the comprehensive plan. As funding becomes available, whether through public or private, then we can begin the implementation phase, where, again, council members will play a vital role. To wrap up, downtown is the heartbeat of Lexington. It is not only important for us, but for our community. As we look to 2025, we must continue laying the groundwork for how we want to shape the next 250 years here in Lexington. With that, we'll open it up for questions. Thank you, Hannah, for the presentation. Council members, first we have council member Reynolds. Thank you, chair. And thank you, council member Kennedy, and thank you, Hannah for working on this. I really appreciate your vision and your desire to come up with a plan that will be followed, implemented, and give vision to downtown. And I know I've already spoken to you about these things, but I wanted to share them with my colleagues. And I'm excited about the possibilities. I'm also a little concerned about how the plan will specifically be used and referenced. I think I have seen how some small area plans and feasibility studies in my own district have not been referenced. A lot of money and work and time went into those plans and people feel like their work in those plans was not used and is not being considered when we look at development for the sales road corridor, for example. I'm supportive. I just want to know it's a lot of money that we're considering and I just would love more information about how these plans are to be used once it's finished. I know you said the comprehensive plan. How would city divisions reference it and look at it when they're looking at infrastructure? How would stakeholders use it? How can we hold everyone accountable to referencing the plan once it's done? Like I said, I'm supportive. I know this touches my district as well. I'm excited about the possibilities. I just want to make sure that if we're going to put all this money and work into it and have people buy in, that it is actually going to be referenced. I think one of the things to think about is how long would a plan like this be valid? How long after a while would people say, that happened several years ago so we're not going to reference it anymore. We're not going to consider it. Those are some of the things that I've heard. I just wanted to state that I'm supportive. I just want us to work on more details going forward. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Reynolds. I appreciate that. I think what I'm hearing you say is that if we are going to go forward with this, we want it to be a document that can be referenced, useful, and implemented and that it stays relevant. I think that working with this potential consultant and with other divisions within government as well as our colleagues and other stakeholders will help us get the input we need to build a plan that is useful. I think that some of our mention of implementation strategies, tax strategies, infill tools will be a vital part of that plan and the phasing of the plan so that the recommendations within it are actionable and relevant and that they can be phased into existence over a period of time in a way that is pragmatic for our city and also helps developers see a vision for the future that they can buy into. I really appreciate the values that you shared and I think they're important to take into consideration as we are building this plan and as we're making the vision for how it could actually work because we want it to. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Next we have Councilmember Plowman. Thank you, Chair. And also, Councilmember LeGray, I think this is great and I appreciate your taking a leadership role on this. I believe that this is really, really important for our community and I'm surprised that it's been almost 20 years. Am I right doing the math here? And I think the stakeholders who's at the table and have vested interest in, and the community as a whole, we really need this vision, this strategic vision, but also the investment of all of our folks in this. Do you know why back in 2000, what was it, 6, that the Planning Commission and no action was taken by them or also Council, did they not? Anybody have any idea about that? Is there anybody here from Planning that could maybe give some context to that question? Councilmember Brown? Fred Brown. Director Duncan is here. If there is some additional context. Director Duncan. Thank you. Planning was involved in the 2006 Downtown Master Plan, but we were not the lead agency on that. That was the downtown authority that did that. I will say that part of the reason that the Planning Commission can adopt a plan or a study as an element of the comprehensive plan is because a number of steps were taken to ensure community engagement, data analysis, development of plan alternatives, and that kind of thing, as well as a public hearing. All of those steps weren't necessarily followed in this. That doesn't negate the fact that a number of the recommendations of the plan and a number of the 16 recommendations that came out of the plan were addressed or implemented. It was a very good plan, but just technically it was not created as a plan that could be adopted by the Planning Commission as an element of the comprehensive plan, although the 2008 plan did reference the study. So that you could still refer to it, but it just didn't have the same weight as an adopted element. Okay. Thank you. Do you know, from a council standpoint, what kind of involvement they had? No. I don't know if it was presented to the council for adoption, so I don't know why that was not. Okay. I was just surprised that nothing has really been done since then. Do you anticipate, Council Member Legree, do you have a timetable that you would like to? I know this is a very initial beginning, but what would you like to have completed? Council Member Plowman, step one is funding, and then I would imagine that this would be a year-long process at least so that we could go through all the steps and, as you said, get the high level of engagement that we need and make sure that many different stakeholders have the necessary input at the front end so that we can build a plan that works for the needs of our downtown, so I would think that it likely could take a year. Yeah, you want to do it right and so investing the time, it's going to really take, so I highly agree. I said I think that it's great that you're doing this and look forward to hearing all about it as it moves forward. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Next, we have Council Member Baxter. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Legree, for your work on this and Hannah, great job on your presentation. Do you have any idea what cost we are looking at for this, like a ballpark figure? Yes, we're looking at about $500,000. Okay, and then would that be the sole responsibility of LFUCG or would any other entities participate in the funding? Typically in a scenario like this, I'm glad to defer to other staff or members of our planning team who are here, commissioner, but there would be at least one consultant involved, if not other people to help lead the strategic input sessions and whatnot. So as we've seen with other plans, sometimes you have a consultant that pairs with another firm that works with the government that then also hires people who are very connected in the community to help guide that dialogue and public engagement process to help it be successful and to assist with trust building. So in the 2008 plan, did we fund the study or did the downtown development authority fund the study? Do we know? Director Duncan, do you recall that, I believe it was the DDA, but... The DDA funded that, but of course the DDA was funded in part by the urban county government as well. But the DDA was responsible for that study. Okay. Yeah, I'm in support of the project. I think that it is important for us to have a good plan for our downtown and a vision for the future. I'm in favor of it. I'm just kind of curious how all the logistics will work. So thank you for the presentation. Thank you. Chair. Thank you, Councilmember. Next we have Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Ms. Iden, for your presentation, and thank you, Councilmember LaGrieve, for leading on this. I'm going to echo my colleagues. Councilmember Reynolds talked about the idea that any plan we make shouldn't languish on a shelf, and I 100% agree with that, and I think having it being adopted into the comprehensive plan will give it solid footing in a way. I know we all worked very hard last year on the goals and objectives for Imagine Washington 2045, and I think this absolutely should be a part of that as well, and I'll also echo Councilmember Plowman's idea that input from community and stakeholders is super important to this. There are always people who are not in these conversations that they should be, the people that are directly affected, the people that live downtown, work downtown, play downtown. They all need to have a voice, so I want to make sure, obviously, as we're building this project that we do robust public input and engagement, and lastly, for me, I think this would be an awesome opportunity to really focus and prioritize on infill and redevelopment. I think it's something that we really, really need to do in this city, but we can't do it haphazardly. It's not up to developers to figure out piecemeal how the city is going to be put together. It's really incumbent on us to build that vision and that plan, so I am very much in support of this master plan. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Next is Councilmember Savigny. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Hannah, for the presentation and Councilmember Greer for bringing this important topic to us. We do all own the downtown, and I think most of us all agree that the core is vital, and this is our core downtown. Two things I wanted to follow up on. The original one that Councilmember Reynolds brought up. I do think I don't know if we fund this, if we need to stipulate in our funding some sort of resolution that I want this to be actionable and adoptable, so I just want to make sure we're following a process via planning, if it's planning ownership, that we actually adopt something versus not, and then the other thing is I want to make sure that we're thinking about streets and transportation and particularly things like closed streets to vehicles, making some streets pedestrian streets or bike streets. I want to be thinking about two-way streets. I want to be thinking about where City Hall is located and the possibilities of street closures overall that are brought actually into the development, into possible development by entities, because when you do these plans, you can really make a huge impact by thinking about the way people will move and interact in those spaces safely, so I just want to make sure that that's part of it, and as long as it's part of it, I'm super excited about it. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Next, we have Councilmember Folk. Thank you, Chair. So District 1, I believe, will be very impacted with the master plan. I can't tell you that as I think about 250 years that we're going to celebrate has been all good for the communities that I serve with the history of slavery. Also, as we look at this plan, $500,000, I wish I could make a master plan. I need that $500,000, but as I represent the people in my district, and as I hear Councilmember Savicki start to talk about lane closures, and I heard some of the language that was used at the conference, of the bike conference, about making one-ways and bike lanes and bike streets. I'm going to support the master plan because I want to see what that's going to unfold and look like with a diverse group of people at the table because we could be talking about, we already have a housing crunch. What triggered me in this report when you kept saying affordable housing, affordable downtown, our community cannot afford downtown. So I don't know how this is going to look in the master plan as we move forward. And I can't say the whole community because there are some people in the first district can go downtown, buy what they want, but I'm thinking about a dream, and how do we dream? How do we trust? And not to bring up a whole lot of past, but we have been told before that like when they tore down the Esmodele, and they tore down Shawley Court, and they changed the names of the streets, and so history continues to be lost. So I'm really interested. There's one more big question. Are we going to use the same old consultants that we always use, or will we put that out there so we can, it just seems like we use the same consultants, and so hopefully we can broaden that scope to include more people that maybe can dream about a master plan that will not destroy or annihilate the community in the first district that's real close to downtown, like over by Northeastern Park, and as you move down the East End quarters and streets, I'm just, I'm really nervous right now, and hopefully Council Member Legree and I was talking about, and she's all favored to make sure that the voices are heard and community is heard, so I'm trusting that right there, just our conversation. So I just wanted to bring up some of those other things, and as we look forward to the next 250 great, great, great grandchildren that they will be able to be proud of Lexington and live and be able to be in the inner city. That was probably that's just about everything I had written down, but you did a great presentation, young lady. Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you, Council Member. Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member Fogle, for your comments. You actually said some stuff that was at the top of my mind that I didn't get out earlier. As a member of the 250 Lex commission, the idea of reflecting and looking back at our 250 years and then looking forward to the next 250, what I hear you saying is we don't want to make those same mistakes and leave the same people behind as we go forward, and as a part of that commission, one of the first things that came up with other commission members is we talked about celebrating. We talked about highlighting all the great stuff going on in Lexington, but also the word reckoning came up. The idea that we have to reckon with our past and look at the way we've done things in the past and then how do we move forward and change things for the better and make Lexington for everyone, and one of the great things about this plan being part of the goals and objectives or being part of the comp plan is that it will fall in line with all the theme A, all the equity policies, one and two, which I put into committee to look at. Because it's going to be enshrined into the comprehensive plan, it's going to have to adhere to all those equity policies, so in a way, again, it gives it solid footing and it gives it kind of safeguards and we don't have to reinvent the wheel and create new ideas or policies around equity. It's going to be kind of inclusive in that, so I think that's a really powerful and really smart way to do it because I share your concerns as well. We need all those voices at the table and we need to make sure as we're building the city that, again, we're not leaving people behind. So I appreciate your comments. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Mayor. I just have a few questions as well. So Council Member LaGuerre or maybe Council Member Brown, I'm just curious, what were the boundaries for the previous master plan? What were we talking about east to west, north to south, just roughly? Council Member Brown, roughly Midland Avenue to around Oliver Lewis Way for the east and west. Probably second or so for the north and south boundaries. Go ahead. For the formal. So, yeah, I think to some of the points that were made and the city has grown and is continuing to grow and, you know, the Distillery District, Turner Commons, I would say people would think that's downtown. Midland Avenue, the Met, East End, the Lyric, that's downtown as well. So, I think we can expand it out, but I think the conversation is about having folks that live in these residential neighborhoods talk about what it is they'd like to see in their neighborhoods. This plan is going to be really focused on business and downtown and economic development. I think we just have to make sure that when we blur those lines that are already blurred, that we're intentional about making sure that we protect these neighborhoods, especially with the transition and the transformation and gentrification that we're seeing in some of these areas. So, I think we've just got to be real careful about how we do that. But, I mean, am I thinking about it right? I would think those boundaries would exceed what we thought about and talked about in the past. Yes, sir. You mentioned Distillery. I would also add to that Gray Line and National Avenue. I think if you're looking at major entertainment destinations, those are the touch points around the east and west and north of downtown. And then you've got the estuary of UK that forms the downtown between downtown and the suburban area. So, I concur. I think we should look at that and then what's in between with the neighborhoods and how do we ensure that those are addressed appropriately. Is it out of the norm to come up with a plan for the core and then where transportation corridors exist, talk about these offshoots? Because I would say Northline, the Gray Line, you know, that's almost a direct touch. And the same thing, you could go in other directions and do these direct touches. I wonder if there's a way to have those conversations and to include those in the plan without encompassing the whole area in between those two. I believe there is, Councilman Brown. I think you can divide these into districts based on the functionality of the transportation system, on the culture of the people who live there, the neighborhoods, and yet it still be considered downtown for larger purposes, but outcomes and recommendations for planning can be different based on the districts. Okay. The other thing I want to add is when we were doing the neighborhoods and transition, we kept going back to one way to try to challenge or to combat gentrification is being more intentional about protecting history. And we talked about these historical surveys for certain areas once they're identified. I think in this plan if the plan doesn't recommend historical surveys for these areas, maybe it can at least identify these areas where we need to do these historical surveys, just to help direct the city and other parties about areas that we need to be more intentional, and I'm trying to think of a good word, more intentional about how we protect that history. Yes. I just want that on the record about historical surveys. Let's talk about cost for a second. We did a small area plan that my office was a part of a few years ago for $300,000. $300,000. Do we think we're going to be in that range of $300,000 to $500,000 for this study? Is that where we're at? Council Member Brown, I believe $500,000 is likely the floor, and that's because for two reasons. First of all, we budgeted that much to do the Blue Sky small area plan. So a big part of the cost of these plans is the community engagement and outreach. Just to get the word out, to hold the meetings, to hold the engagement, and with downtown, if you're talking about a number of different neighborhoods and different organizations to meet with, I believe there will be a lot of outreach that's required with this plan. So based on our experience, I believe $500,000 is a reasonable number for this. Thank you, Director. Thank you, Council Member LaGrie, for bringing this item forward, and Hannah for the presentation, and I am supportive and looking forward to having this conversation at the fund balance discussion. So thank you. I don't see anybody else signed up for questions or comments, so we'll move on to the next item of our agenda, which is the LexArts Finance and Equity Review. This item was referred to committee by Vice Mayor Wu, so Vice Mayor, I'll turn it over to you for introduction and introduction to the presenter. Thank you, Chair. I put this item in committee because I believe the arts are imperative to a thriving city, and I think we all believe that. It's an economic driver, it defines our culture, and it's what makes Lexington, I think, an amazing city. And so as our official arts agency for Lexington, we want LexArts to be successful, not only in its work to fund and support local arts organizations, but to do it in an equitable way. And I know that's also the mission of the staff and the board of LexArts. So without further ado, thank you, Ms. Sweetall, for your presentation and your being here. Take it away. Thank you, Vice Mayor Wu, and thank you to all our city council members and the city officials that are here today for inviting us, and I really thank you for this opportunity to present the state of LexArts, our focus areas, and our vision, as outlined. I do want to My name is Amy Sweetall, if you don't know, and I am President and CEO. We do have several staff and board members here today I'd like to quickly recognize. We have Nathan Zamaron, Vice President at LexArts, joining us. Kaymon Murrah, who is our Community Arts Manager here from LexArts. From our board, we have Stephan Hendrickson, who is the Chair of our Finance Committee. Angela Coleman, the Chair of our Nominating Committee. Alex Chadwell, who is the Co-Chair of our DEIA Committee. We also have James Brown and Council Member Kathy Plowman are part of our Board of Directors. And I'd like to recognize also Legislative Aide LaShawn Barber, as part of the LexArts Board of Directors, as well as Sally Hamilton, who is the Mayor's Designate on the LexArts Board. So, great support here today for what LexArts is doing. Please note that on the slide that you will be seeing and following, I won't go in-depth on every slide. You'll see a lot of words. It's not that scary. I won't read you from the slides, but I wanted you to have all of that information to keep and review for later as needed. The first... Let me see if I can do this. This first slide is a snapshot of the arts in Fayette County. Americans for the Arts. as well as Kentuckians for the Arts helped to provide this regional data on our creative vitality in Fayette County. This index analyzes creative jobs data, industry earnings and revenues, and Lexington boasts a creative vitality index above the U.S. national average, which is 1.0. So we are at 1.09. We've been higher in the past, but the arts and creative sector really is a significant part of what Lexington is and its creative vitality. The next slide is about who we are. This includes our vision, mission, and values statements on the page for your reference. Our mission specifically references two major roles of LexArts, which were created through merging two different organizations in 1989. The Lexington Council of the Arts formed in 1972, the Fund for the Arts formed in 1984, and then of course they merged in 1989. The organization was then renamed as LexArts in 2005. Those specific roles that are stated in our mission include serving as Lexington's official arts, local arts agency, and as the United Arts Fund. LexArts is the local arts agency established by LFUCG executive order that is there on your screen, you can see. This allows for positive collaboration between the city and LexArts. Most notably, it unlocks the ability to receive federal funding. LexArts has been the recipient of several National Endowment for the Arts grants over the years for hundreds of thousands of dollars. This includes $200,000 that is included in our FY25 budget for impact. Local arts agency functions, just to be clear, these are these types of things. These particular areas demonstrate the functions that LexArts performs as the local arts agency and are the foundation of what makes up this part of our mission. The unifying theme throughout each of these functions includes the support and development of the arts sector, arts organizations, and artists in the community. Diversity, inclusion, equitable opportunities, and community value are considered in each of LexArts programmatic functions. Also included in your packet is the LexArts fiscal year 2025 budget. This chart that you see on the screen is the breakdown of sources of revenue projected in FY25 to make up our budget. Also, it's the projected areas of spending providing impact in the arts. The key takeaway here is that 69% of the LexArts spending of nearly $2.7 million is going directly to artists and organizations in the arts through grants, programming, and direct project support. These numbers do not reflect the marketing and technical resources as well as non-monetary grants and rental discounting that LexArts provides to artists and organizations. In free and discounted rental rates alone, including the ArtsPlace tenant rate of $1.00, all of you real estate folks here, the tenant rental of $1.00 per square foot per month at ArtsPlace, LexArts provides over a million dollars in rent reduction based on that rate compared to Lexington's commercial real estate value that can run anywhere from $15.00 to over $50.00 per square foot per month. LexArts transparency and effectiveness have gained us a platinum rating on the non-profit evaluation standard, the standard which is GuideStar. On these issues of budget and ratings, I would be happy to take further questions at the end of the presentation for more detail. The next screen is the grants allocation process. This is really a high-level look at the basic processes that LexArts employs for grant allocation. This overview reflects a shift in the overall ease and accessibility to apply, including a rolling deadline for many of our entry-level grants, a simplified application with seven direct questions, that's it, and general operating support grant recipients are using the same application questions that are used for the Kentucky Arts Council grants, so it's really a mirroring of the same information. In particular, I call your attention to the specific efforts we take to provide an ample application window with multiple opportunities to attend workshops or one-on-one sessions to assist in the application. We also have all general operating support and community arts development grants reviewed and scored by independent panelists to avoid any bias or perception of bias. Funds are then allocated according to the scores by the LexArts Board of Directors. A specific area that we were asked to address today is diversity, equity, and inclusion at LexArts. I've placed the DEIA statement for LexArts on your screen that we were able to place into our policy in 2021 after we participated in training and facilitation of creating a cultural equity plan through the Kentucky Arts Council assistance. Its main focus is to foster an inclusive arts community reflecting the diversity of the community we serve. Primarily, a greater emphasis was placed in the DEIA criteria for funding, and DEIA efforts and planning are a specific part of the application in the scoring rubric, which reflects merit for those initiatives. Specific steps that have been taken in LexArts granting and programming include a standing DEIA committee on the Board of Directors that includes community advisors and provides board oversight on DEIA benchmarks included in the LexArts strategic plan, which you have in your packet. We have strategic recruitments to the Board of Directors and staff at LexArts for diversity. We've provided LexArts equity grant allocations for three years with over $200,000 tracked to diverse and inclusive projects and artists. That includes the $50,000 that was allocated last year from the LFUCG in the 24 budget. We've enhanced the LexArts artist registry to provide BIPOC identification and promotion for paid opportunities. We have school programs to provide access to arts programming for schools and students that have been underserved in the arts typically. And LexArts staff and program outreach is now a main focus for the entire community. We really focus on activities with a more diverse audience and outreach. The future of DEIA at LexArts relies on more outreach and really enhanced focus on areas of change. As with most nonprofit work, we all know that fundraising is essential. Our development plan includes targeted fundraising for equity programs, which allows more funding to target equity and diversity in the arts and allows for more parity with the traditional art forms that typically receive the most funding. I've listed on the screen the FY25 arts equity grants that have already been allocated this year for over $60,000. A targeted campaign is in progress to increase this pool for more equity programming. Today I was asked to address some very specific operational updates in this presentation, and they're listed on your screen. In FY24, the council allocated an additional $100,000 to fund arts equity grants and a grants specialist position. The grants specialist position has been a great resource to identify, cultivate and solicit foundational grants and funds. It has increased our grant procurement by over three times just this year. As mentioned before, the equity grants have been highly sought after and successful for impact in the arts. I'm also excited to let you know that the city funded arts and culture master plan is in its final stages, with final recommendations expected in the next two weeks. We will work with the city to conduct a very public rollout of that plan. I have provided the council the LexArts FY25 budget overview. It has been developed to be fiscally responsible after a very rough fundraising year last year, but it's also dynamic in its diversity in revenue generation and cost saving. As an example, please note the increase in project and earned revenue resources. Where we've seen a dip in fundraising, we've been increasing opportunities in earned revenue. And finally, the FY22 audit report, with an unqualified opinion, was issued last year. The FY22 auditor's communication letter provided suggestions for improvements in internal controls, which we've addressed fully. We anticipate the FY23 audit report to have an unqualified opinion as well, and to be issued in October of 2024. The auditors have also indicated that they noted no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies in internal controls for FY23. While LexArts is always in need of more money, as you know, we have not had any reports of fiscal irresponsibility and respond to needed changes for really best practices and accountability. With that, I would like to take this time to thank the LFUCG Council and City of Lexington for your continued and important support of the arts sector and of LexArts. This partnership is a positive collaboration in the community and will always strive for the best impact. I also want to thank you for this opportunity to address your concerns and to update the city on this partnership. I'm happy to take questions, as are the other members of the LexArts staff and board that are here with me today. Thank you. Thank you, Amy, for the presentation and your work at LexArts. Committee members, are there questions? Don't all jump at once. Council Member Reynolds. I'm third down. I see other people first, but I'll go if you let me. Thank you. Thank you, Amy, for this presentation and for coming before us. I have a few different things. With the arts and cultural master plan, you said that would be happening in the next few weeks, the rollout? The final report will be issued in the next few weeks. I would like to make sure that I plan with the city the rollout, since you're the funding mechanism for that. Okay, because there was a lot of robust, I think, feedback and input from the public, so I just want to make sure that we get to see that soon. And then, I appreciate you sharing or us getting this additional strategic governance plan, but I'm not understanding it all the way, so I just wanted to ask a question about on page three, goal number two measures for FY 2025, it says participation, membership, and partnership with government, education, organizations, and associations. It says 24. What does that number represent? Sorry about that. So in our strategic plan, one of the areas of focus was, sorry, I don't have it in front of me. There was impact, influence, and so I think influence, that was, am I right, is that part of the influence bucket? But it was talking about where we as LexArts are members, where we are in the community participating in other endeavors, and so that was just a simple count of what are all the other organizations that we attend and we're active in participation to make sure that the arts is part of that conversation as well. So LexArts interacts with 24 arts organizations. It's on page three. I think that was referring to boards and commissions that our staff serves on, so like I serve on the social services advisory board, the public art commission, and the mayor's 250 Lex commission, so that would count as three of those, but it's just encouraging and tracking how much our staff is out there engaging in the planning commissions and boards around the city. Okay, and then so on the item where it says membership in the budget, and it says 2,500, does that mean membership is arts organizations that give money to LexArts to kind of be a member of LexArts? How many of those organizations do you have that are members? That is a loose number. When it says membership, it's for the LexArts network. Of course, you don't have to be a member to engage with LexArts. The LexArts network is a monthly outreach where we do meetings to help resource and talk about issues in the arts and those sorts of things. We provide technical assistance. We provide training, various things like that. So organizations, we actually waive any fee for our arts equity grant organizations and artists as well as our lowest level community arts development grant recipients, but so for other organizations that want to be a part of that network, it's a low fee that we ask just so that we can provide some stipend for our trainers or for lunches or those sorts of things. So how many members do you have? It's open. Does anybody come? Paid members? I think right now we're at about 20, I think. Usually about 20 organizations show up at a regular meeting, but it has ranged about 50 organizations sign up for that. As Amy said, some organizations are getting that membership for free. Other ones that, if they're a larger organization, not the lowest granted category, then they're paying $150 a year to join, and that basically just pays for lunches for those meetings. Okay. Thank you. And then specifically, we know the conversation that we've had about reaching out to all artists, and not just one type of artist, not just one demographic, beyond the words that we saw in the presentation, what are you all doing to really reach out to a broader scope of artists in our community? We have a ton of diverse artists that make up a really robust scene in Lexington, and we don't always see those represented in LexArts. What are you doing concretely to work on that? Yeah. And you said the right word. What are you doing to reach out? And that is really kind of at the key of what our plan is for that outreach. It is really trying to target markets. We have our DEIA committee, Alex Chadwell is here, and I'm sure if you want to correct or add in, you can, but our DEIA committee is really helping us resource those outreach avenues. So, when we identify neighborhood meetings or community outreach activities or any of those things, we always try to sign up to table and be in the community and be in places where we can share what LexArts is doing in all communities. We're sending calls for artists, calls for artist registry, any of those sorts of resources out into those newsletters and those opportunities. We're working with Global Lex to get more information back out into more of the community about what LexArts can do for more artists and organizations that are out there. So, it really is kind of a matter of outreach, and that's a hard one, but we are working quite a bit to try to find those areas to really pull in more people and open our doors for more communication with the arts sector. My time is up. I'll come back. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Next is Councilmember Sheehan. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation and for all the information you're bringing to us. I have two questions about the operational updates, just to have some more information. For the grant specialist funding from fiscal year 24, you mentioned that you were able to apply for more grants. Could you give a little more detail on that? How many grants were you able to apply for with that position, and then how many grants? I understand that not all grant applications are awarded, so then how many awards did you receive that increased your revenue to LexArts? I am going to speak off the top of my head, so I might not have my numbers exact, but I'm happy to do that, too. Okay. Yeah. When we hired a grant specialist, that person, first and foremost on his plate was the identification. We've never had the bandwidth to be able to do that real research, where you really are looking for where are opportunities for us to ask for more money. Matt was able to come up with just a really lengthy list of opportunities for us to apply. Those have different deadlines, so we're literally still working on some of his lists to still put in applications. Matt is no longer with LexArts. He had to leave for medical reasons, but just the identification of when those applications are due and when we can get those in has just been, oh, at least, you know, he's identified probably 50 new areas where we could apply for grants. We might not hit all of those, but we at least know about them now, and they can be on the docket. In terms of return, you know, most of the bigger grants take a good long while. So while we have received, well, the $200,000 from the NEA, but also our arts and health initiatives and various grants, we've received, like I said, over threefold what we had done the year prior in funding coming in from those acquisitions that Matt was able to help us do. But so, I mean, you know, number of grants that we're putting in has increased. You know, we were sticking around the same old margin of maybe 10 a year, and we're at least at probably 50 a year now. And so, you know, still to be seen what we're going to get back from that as well. So you had on average about 10 grants that you applied for in the past, and now you're saying within this fiscal year you expect to apply for 50? Is that what you said? Okay. That seems like a lot for grant applications. Well, I should say we've identified 50. Now, sometimes we get into them when we decide maybe it's not the right time for us, it's not the right fit, but we've identified 50 different foundations, and that includes, you know, family foundations to big government grants or, you know, any of those sorts of things. So it's just been, it's a wide swath of what those opportunities are. We just haven't had the bandwidth to really do that deep research to identify those. And then are you in the process of hiring for that position since the prior person had to leave? Not yet. I hope to in the future. Okay. And then my last question, you mentioned that you made changes to internal controls based on the fiscal year 22 audit. Could you give a little more specific information about what changed? Yes. I would like to invite Stephan to come up and maybe speak a little bit about what those internal processes were that were referenced and the steps that we've taken to correct those. Would you mind doing that? Hi. Stephan Hendrickson. I've met some of you all. Treasurer for LexArts. As most of you all know, small nonprofits tend to have small staffs in the office. So with internal controls, really what we're looking for is to identify weaknesses in our processes that could lead to errors or could lead to any kind of fraud. What we've done since we had that internal control material weakness in the letter, we've instituted some closing policies for each month. So there's an actual checklist now, who signs off, who does what. We've added some policies and procedures related to where mail comes in the door, who's going to open it, where lists are made, who checks those lists, ultimately a third party checks those lists. So we've diversified some handling of documents and essentially sign-offs. Identifying redundancies is really what you're doing to try to remediate those issues. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember. Next, we have Councilmember LaGre. Thank you, Chair. I had a couple of questions about the cultural past summer program that you all piloted this past summer. I know that on the beginning point of that program, it was presented to us, and we were interested in the outcomes. Can you talk to me a little bit about the engagement, the outcomes, how that program went, and the benefit to students or the community of artists? Absolutely. Thank you. As we had presented earlier, you know a lot of this, but this program became very interesting to us. This is something that Louisville does. They have a cultural past program in Louisville. It's highly popular. It has used something, the numbers were out of this world, the number of engagements that students made in that. Knowing that this would be our first time out, we conducted this year as a pilot program. We did a slow opening. To do this, we got over 20 organizations to sign on with activities and entrance and participation in their programming or their visitation at zero or reduced rate. What we were able to do was earmark funds so that students could use the cultural past that they received from school to take into an organization, and that paid their way through. The organization then tracked every visit that they had for something that was a paid opportunity, and then we, LexArts, reimbursed the organization. We didn't want to take money out of the hands of the organizations. We want to make sure that they get paid and reimbursed. We found that just on the tracked from our organizations, just on the tracked visits and usage of the cultural past that we had over 700 visits during the summer. Most of our visits were not tracked because it was a free entrance anyway, and so we were able to, they didn't think to market because it didn't change their numbers at all. We know that there was a lot more in the untracked visits to our arts organizations. We also had a partnership with LexTran, and the cultural past was able to be used as a bus pass for you and your parents, so for two people, as a bus pass, and LexTran reported to us that there was a high volume of usage for the cultural past for the buses to get to this programming, so great opportunity. We hope to ramp it up and do even more next year, but we will have to find a sponsor funding for that opportunity. One thing on that is we didn't actually have a funder for the program this current year, so we kind of worked with our, and that's why we looked at it as a pilot, so a lot of our programming partners were leaning towards the free programs that they were doing, and so this was a way to market that arts opportunity to the families and the students, but they, so there were a lot of uses, as Amy said, that they might have went out to Moon Dance for a Legro dance project, and there wasn't like a, they weren't taking tickets at the gate, so people went out there using their past, but that might not have been tracked, so the numbers were quite, were a lot. We did hear from our program partners that the increased traffic was there, so we're thinking about ways that we can track that into next year, and especially as we get to having a funding partner to support it, then we will be encouraging our groups that we will have ample reimbursement available to them, so we'll be looking at more ticketed events that they're providing free tickets, and Amy mentioned the numbers that Louisville shows, and they actually give out a similar number of passes. We actually distributed 40,000 passes because we did every student in Fayette County. I'll say that we can distribute earlier in the spring so that we have it before the right end of school, but also Louisville has last year gave out 40,000 passes, and they were used 60,000 times, so that's, and each of those passes is a student and a parent, so that's actually 120,000 impressions that Louisville saw from the same program, so we think we can get up there once we have the funding partner in place and, you know, learn from this pilot and kind of move forward in a robust way. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Next we have Councilmember Plowman. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Amy, and thanks to LexArts for the historical role they've played in our community for the past 50 years, and having been on and off that board for almost that same amount of 50 years, Councilmember Fred Brown, you're not the only one that has some longevity around this circle, but one of the things when I was reading and listening to your presentation today, you used the word that you were the catalyst, kind of the conduit, if you would, in outreach between our arts and also the community, so it makes sense when someone wants to access the arts in our community, they go to you and through you. So let's say someone wanted to have a project that was going to be brought into programming in the community or some type of usage, how do you do that? Can you talk a little bit about your registry? Sure. Now, in terms of projects or opportunities, there's a whole range of opportunities, so first and foremost, we talk about our grants. So if there's an individual artist or an organization or a project that someone is working on that they think could be a really great fit for this community in the arts, you can come to us. If it has any kind of a diverse or inclusion outreach or artist involvement, you can apply through the AEG grants. Once a year, we have the community arts development and the general operating support. That would be a community arts development opportunity to apply in the spring. We also have, for instance, a teacher's guide, and we ask our artists and our projects and things going out there, tell us what you have that's going on where a classroom could benefit. So either they come out for a field trip to you or you come into the classroom to teach them in the arts or those sorts of things. So we provide grants for school opportunities to come into the classroom and do those sorts of things. And then, of course, we just have our project facilitation. So right now, a good example of that would be the Freedom Train, the Harriet and Louis Hayden memorial that's going up on the corner of 4th and Lyme. That's a great example of a group in the community that had a really interesting idea for arts engagement, for doing public art, but they don't have the means to know how to move through the channels to get public art. So we facilitate that process for them, coming to you all for public art approval, you know, to put out on the streets, to help them fundraise, to get all of the cost. Nathan is really our kind of guru on doing calls for art and calls for artists. So whether it's a national, international, or local, or regional artist that somebody is looking for for a project, we're able to send that word out to all of our artists. Now, that might be, you know, grand scale, like this piece I'm referring to. That might also be something local and smaller, where we're asking just our local artists to apply or to send designs or ideas or concepts for a particular project. So in all of the different ways, the whole idea at the heart of it is giving anybody with an endeavor, an artistic endeavor, the place to come realize that, to make that happen. So LexArts, whether we're funding you actual monetary resources or a space at ArtsPlace or to do the classroom or to do the workshop or whatever it is you want to do, or to just to help facilitate sort of getting the community to know about the thing that you're doing. We are always here to sort of help resource all of those things for you as an artist or a project. How many folks do you have on your registry? Right now it's four. So there is an artist registry, which is really a glorified Excel sheet, you know, distribution list, let's say, and that is free to join. Any artist can sign up on our website. We send calls to artists to, it has been as many as a thousand individuals that might self-identify as any number, type of artist. In recent years, we've tried to clean that up and make sure that those contacts are current. And so we've sent out, you know, a, hey, let us know your current contact information. And we had about four or five hundred give us, you know, more current information. So in that network, I would say it's about four to five hundred people that currently, you know, have recently re-signed up for that. And we're constantly trying to expand who's getting that distribution. We often will send out to the local media calls for art as well, and they may republish it, of course, through social medias and things so people can see it that way too. And so the artist registry really is just a way to stay in the know about things that are happening. And we'll distribute things from us, but also from all the other organizations in town. If they send it to us, we'll send it out to that group. And I'm almost out of time. One quick question, when they get back to you, are they anonymous in terms of who they are? No. Okay. They, I mean, we have their name and contact information, basically. We have started, came on, we've started adding in some more tracking things. Like we, and none of our, we didn't use to track an artist's race or ethnicity. That is something that we've added in for the purpose of being able to make sure that these calls are reaching diverse individuals, but also that our, if somebody comes to us to make a purchase or outfit a new institution with art, that we're helping them be informed about who, whose art they're looking at. Is that correct? Yep. So when we added or asked new information from our artists, I'm sorry, I'm dealing with bronchitis, but we made sure to ask a few BIPOC questions to make sure that we're canvassing the whole entire city, including where they're coming from, their, their background, a host of different identifiers. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Next, we have Council Member Lynch. Thank you, Chair, for recognition, since I do not serve on this committee. Amy, thank you for your presentation. I'm going to kind of, my questions kind of flow the order of your presentation, so I'm going to kind of go from slide one all the way through. My first question is regarding the 10,303 total creative jobs here. How did you come up with that number? This is a, this is a study that it's done by the, well, it's purchased by the Kentuckians for the Arts and, and Americans for the Arts puts it on, and so we're able to get that, get that data from the Americans for the Arts. It's, it comes from all of our economic data that they, that they come through. And then it says that Lexington has a 1.09 creative vitality index. I don't know if it's one as low or 10 as high, so what's the range on that? So they start the, they, basically your average score would be 1.0. The U.S. average is 1.0. So anything above one means that you are higher than average in your creative vitality index. Of course, lower would be not so much. And that kind of leads to my question. Several times throughout the packet, I know that you all are Lexington's arts organization as stipulated through the agreement that was in our packet, but I've also seen in your presentation regional touches. So do you consider yourself a regional organization, a Lexington organization, or both? We are absolutely a Lexington organization. We do have some opportunity for artists or organizations outside of LexArts to engage with LexArts, but it is limited in scope. Thank you for that clarification. My next question is regarding the cultural pass program, since that was something relatively new that we supported from council, and I know that you said this was a pilot project, so you didn't necessarily have all the data, but did you track, I'm just very curious about how many students of color were able, participated in this cultural pass program, and then did you track their first impressions, like if it was this child's first time going to the Lexington Children's Museum, did you track those kind of impressions? We did not, simply because of capacity, and Louisville does do that, and that is our goal to get there. There would have to be a pretty robust reporting mechanism for our arts organizations to easily be able to do that, because we're already asking them to do something new, we didn't want to throw on too many, now stop them and ask this question, this question, before they actually do the arts engagement, so we're sharing from Louisville, or we're borrowing from Louisville, how they do track that data, and see if we can mirror that as well. If I might add just a little bit, so point of clarification, we actually didn't have a funding partner for this current, this past cycle, so there wasn't LFUCD specific funds that went into that program, we did make a request for it, but it didn't make it through, so we were working with very limited resources this time, we did have a, the pass itself didn't have robust data tracking within it, so it was just a generic card that the students got, in Louisville they do have a partnership with the public library, and that has a more robust tracking ability, so we are going to be looking at as we get more funds as part of that program, to be able to do more robust tracking, now we did ask what school and grade the students were, so we can know, of those 700 or so impressions that came through, that we did track, we know what school they went to, and what grade they were, that's about the depth of information that we have to work with for this current year. I hope as you continue to build out this program, that you do collect that data, because that, having that data can lead to increased funding opportunities, and I'm just curious how many students of color were able to participate in arts experiences that they never had before, because of the pass, so I'm just, I'm really curious about that data, so I hope that you all, as you all build this program out, that you'll collect that data, and then share that with us, because I'm, especially me, I'm very, very curious as well. Regarding, let's see, I remember that LexHearts was doing an economic impact study regarding the arts here in the community, is that study still ongoing, has a report been issued, I just haven't seen anything about it. When I first came on at LexHearts, we were involved in the Americans for the Arts economic data survey, and that's been several years ago, we did publish that report, it's sort of like this creative vitality index, it tells us where the arts are supporting the economics and the revenue generated from the arts sector, now, when I first came on, that was pandemic, and that's when they did the study, so I never found that study to be especially helpful, because all of the data was COVID data, so it was a little hard to use in any significant way. I see I'm out of time, so I will just log back in, because I have additional questions, thank you. Thank you, Council Member, next is Council Member Sabigny. Thank you for recognizing me, Chair, and thank you for your presentation. First thing I want to do is just thank you for doing the presentation, and I personally want to thank Nathan Zemmerin, because he tends to help a lot in my geography with just kind of getting certain things done, which is very much appreciated. I got a few questions. You shared your financials, but you really didn't share your balance sheet, and where I'm going at with that is I'm a little, I don't know what your days of cash are, in a way, because I'm a little bit concerned, I've heard from a number of organizations that you support kind of on a regular basis, that payments, just to basically state it, what it is, payments are slow, and typically, I mean, I've been involved with a number of businesses, and I know the ones that when I paid slow, it generally was because I had a cash issue, and I don't know if you have secured bank lines of credit to support that, I don't know really how you're doing things, but I do know that impact impacts a whole group of people down the chain, and I really kind of want to understand that piece of it a little bit better, and if there's something that you're doing to try to mitigate that. Frankly, the best thing that we're doing is that we are working with Sally Hamilton. Sally is now on the board and has been really instrumental in reworking our purchase of service agreement with the city, so Sally has asked us to adhere to a very strict schedule about when the city makes payments, we turn around and make payments to our arts partners. So far, we're going well, we're meeting schedule, and we've gotten all of those payments on schedule. And would, do you think your partners, if I ask them, would all agree with that? I met with two of them this morning, and they thanked me for being Johnny on the spot with our payments. I just want to make sure, because I know that that's an issue, and I just want to make, like that's really, really important. Like when you're holding somebody's money, it's important. Staffing changes, tell me like how your staff has morphed in the last four or five years since pre-COVID to now, just are you at the same levels, different levels? Staffing levels, I am now four and a half, almost five years at LexArts. I started in February of 2020, and so right before the pandemic, so during the pandemic we did not do any layoffs or furloughs. That's not true. We did one layoff that was, that was, she asked for it. She chose to go that route. So we had been relatively steady through pandemic and then post-pandemic. In the last year, for various reasons, we've lost, we've lost several staff members to re-retirement and reorganization and things like that. And so right now our staffing is quite low, but I'm working very hard on getting there. Okay. And you mentioned, so are you trying to restaff that grant position or not? I mentioned before that FY24 was a particularly hard fundraising year. And so, so that we don't have to dip lower in terms of what we're granting, when the grants position left LexArts, I put it on hold to rehire because I don't want to over spend. I want to make sure that we have our grant spending out there. That's a catch-22 because we get more money in. Did that money technically come in to you as a, as a restricted grant for, for that position? I'm just, I don't know that. Yes. And it did. Yes. And it, and, and it did fund that position for almost a year. Okay. So, but, so it was over a hundred thousand dollar position or? No, 50,000. Okay. Okay. All right. I may follow up on that one. And then I just wanted to let the council know and let you know that we're, we're planning, like we do different days here, we're going to have an arts and humanities day on October 30th. And I'm asking all the council members to join us on that. Because my opinion is that arts and humanities is, it's a driver of economic development. It's a driver of retaining and attracting talent to our city, which retains and attracts new companies. So I really, it's really important that I think we have a thriving ratio. I would like to see our ratio, not 1.09. I would like to see it up with the, some of the most creative cities, because I really do think it drives an incredible value that is super tangible. And, and Council Member Sugini, I do have a lot of data on the things that you just said. I'd be happy to meet with you to share any of that for that presentation or that day, that arts day. Thank you. To participate. So, yeah, we have a lot of good information. Once again, I appreciate, appreciate you guys being there. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Council Member. Hey, I'm going to ask committee members to try to be succinct with their questions. I'd like to try to end this meeting with enough time to transition to work session. So just keep that in mind. Next up is Council Member Gray. Thank you, Chair. I guess that does not relate to me because I'm not a member of the committee, so blessings. Thank you for your presentation. I just have a couple of questions and I will be succinct. First of all, regarding the cultural summer pass with Fayette County Public Schools, just I heard you mentioned basically there was zero tracking with so therefore zero data regarding I'm just trying to make sure. So we don't have any information as to repeat visitors, which individuals from different schools who participated, and we do not have basically any demographics whatsoever. Is that correct? I wouldn't say there's zero tracking. We took we took data on the fact that people came. I mean, so we had over 700 visits tracked as making when we when there was opportunity, we did track school and age, what grade that they were in. But any of the deeper demographics, we really the way that Louisville does it is the cards actually have, you know, a barcode. And so when somebody uses it in Louisville, they scan it under a thing and all that data goes straight to straight to the Fund for the Arts in Louisville. And of course, you know, we just don't have access to that kind of data tracker at this point as a pilot program. I hope that we I hope that we can move toward a very robust tracking like you're suggesting. And so just going forward, Google, there are free forms of tracking using a QR code that are out there. Just I know that budget and money is always an issue with nonprofits. So that just I would encourage you to look more into that. And I can send you some information, please. Yeah. Because we're a team. We're all working together. Right. Yeah. And, you know, what happens is then our arts organizations are going to need to have the tracking device. You know, there's a lot of pieces that we got it, but I'd love to I'd love to further that conversation. So as someone that serves on the Autism Society, Bluegrass and on Access Lexington, accessibility is always a consideration. So what aspects? What steps for accessibility did we're taking for the cultural passes? Were there any times for. Many individuals with autism cannot be around loud sounds and need certain like quiet times. Did we have any of those times that were scheduled? Yes, we did. We worked with Allegro Dance Company to create a sensory program, dance program with them, as well as with the library. They also had a sensory program as well as kindergarten sensory programs as well. We also worked with the Global Lex to create different language to to kind of mitigate those language barriers. So we had different different types of language available online with a cue card, all those good things. But yes, we we intentionally made sure that we had programs for all accessibility. I ask that question because we have received complaints to regarding the lack of accessibility to particularly individuals with autism. In fact, while we were here, I received a text to make sure that I did bring that up. And that was already on my list to do so. In addition, I would encourage LexArts to send us information of I have not received any information from LexArts to share my newsletters. Not once. I would encourage you to do so. I heard that you all give out information, but I know my office has never received anything. Also, the Autism Society of Bluegrass, we have not received any information as well. And I know is under individuals, other groups that I do work with that deal with accessibility, they have not received any communication from LexArts regarding grants or any opportunities whatsoever. So I encourage you to reach out and to reach out to underrepresented communities more, be more intentional. But I'm done. Thank you. And just to follow up on that, I'm taking the responsibility of outreach and and getting into the community. I'm still new to the game here, but I'll definitely reach out to you in all aspects of accessibility. Thank you. Because like I said, we're all working together. Thank you, chair. All right. Thank you for that. Next is Vice Mayor Wu. Thank you, chair. Thank you, Ms. Sweetall, for the presentation. I wanted to go back to the grant writer position that we funded last year for a hundred thousand. Was there an intention for this grant writer to write a grant to sustain their own position? Because this hundred thousand, it was only supposed to be for a first year salary. It was fifty thousand. The hundred thousand was the additional grant that or funding that the city provided. That was split between fifty thousand dollars arts equity grants and fifty thousand dollars for grant specialists. So it was a one year salary. And yes, the the the, you know, the goal was to was to the return on investment was is has been quite good. So I'm not sure about funding their own position, but at least funding so that we would have money in the budget to to continue that position. When I lost most of the development staff at the same time, I wanted to make sure that we got our first development officers in place before we went back to the grants writer position. So, yes, I hope to I hope to do that because I do think the return on investment is quite good. OK, and thank you. And for to be clear, I want to clarify your answer from earlier. You said traditionally you've been you all have written 10 grants, right? Yes. And then you're you're when you gave the 50 number, you were talking about being able to identify 50 grants. Right. So this new position in the time that they were there, a little bit less than a year. How many new grants did they write and how many of those grants were specifically equity related grants? Oh, I'd have to go back and look. One of one of Matt's areas of research was specifically for equity and diversity in the arts. So I know we have a in our in our spreadsheet of all of the opportunities that we want to follow up on. There was quite a few that were specific to equity and diversity in the arts. We we put in two grants. I can remember specifically while Matt was here for diversity initiatives, including cultural paths, opportunities, those sorts of things. So not everything has been funded, but I think we have a lot more opportunity to provide for. That's when I mentioned this, this idea of of fundraising for equity to provide equity. Right. So so our fundraising and development plan between grants and all of our fundraising is directly targeted to finding those opportunities to spread, to increase diversity in our donors, in our donor base, but then use those funds to do more in the arts, diversity in the arts. Thank you for that question about the arts registry. You said you all have started to take more demographic information, particularly as it comes to diversity. Do you have some of those numbers? Like what what percentage of that registry are artists of color, that sort of thing? Um, I don't, I don't. I'm sorry. Yeah, because we like said, the artist registry has been in place for years and we've never asked that data before. And it's and it's also a self-identifier. You don't have to put that information in there. So I'd have to go back to see where because right now we're just doing that follow up. We're going back to the registry saying, hey, we want to make sure if you are someone that identifies as BIPOC, we want to make sure that we know that so that we can provide influence or encourage our our our clients to use your services to provide more equity. So I'd have to go back and look. But I would say we're still pretty slim on getting most of that information as of yet. OK, so you've reached out to existing members of the registry to ask them voluntary questions because if you're a new member, if you're a new member, that's already on the forum when you register. But but the ones that have been on there for so long and have been getting our calls for for, you know, opportunities, we don't have that information. So we're asking them to kind of re-register with that information. Thank you for that. My final question is about the cultural pass. You mentioned that you all this year, because it was a pilot, it was more limited in scope. You all had 20 partners and you logged 700 visits. But you all think there are more visits than that because a lot of these partners were already free to get into. So they didn't track it. Right. So of the 20 partners, which ones were already free to get into? Well, for instance, I think Nathan mentioned something like an Allegro show at Moondance. A lot of most of their shows are non-ticketed. It's it's free to the public. So we would we use the cultural pass as sort of a marketing initiative to tell people, hey, go, you know, go to this show. And so we don't have any numbers to know where they went in there. If you know, even LexArts, we we we had a lot of visitors this summer that came to see our gallery, the exhibit in our gallery. But of course, you don't you don't have to stop and check in to go into the gallery. You just go go right in. But we saw a lot more young people coming through our gallery this summer, you know, with cultural pass in hand. So just those things that where you're able to just sort of walk in anyway, we use those as really kind of more of a marketing and promotion for those organizations to get more students to to come in and enjoy. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. I'm going to ask folks coming in for the next meeting to try to keep it down in the back. We got one more question that we can take from council members. So Council Member Reynolds is on this committee. Thank you, Chair. I'll be as quickly as I can on the cultural pass. I just wanted to make a few comments. One, I think it's a great idea. A good program, too. I heard from multiple organizations that they had no participation at all and that they bought in and had zero participation. So that does concern me going forward. I'd like to make sure that we like you stated earlier, we get the information out way earlier and do better outreach. I don't think that that happened successfully. I just want to make sure when you say bought in, there was no fee or anything. They just signed up for signed up to be a part of it. Yep. And then I have a question. Is the Reynolds on your budget overview? Reynolds Sculpture. That's not referring to me and my sculpture project, is it? Oh, you'll have to take what it says on here. Reynolds Sculpture. Fifteen hundred. I hope. Is that a different Reynolds? Yeah, because I do have a sculpture project, but I did not work with Lexarts except to consult with Nathan, and he was great at helping me. But. I'm sorry, I can't I can't quite remember, but wasn't there an overpass or something that there's a conversation about being painted or is that? No. Yeah, I'm looking at it. I'm sorry, I just can't remember. OK, well, I need an answer on that. So I was working with corridors, the Corridors Commission and the Public Arts Commission on putting a sculpture in my district on public right of way. And so Nathan helped me figure out how I was going to transport the statue. But I didn't I didn't give any money to Lexarts. So I just want to make sure that wasn't me. And if it is that that's taken care of. And that might have been in the beginning what he would have, if that was even a conversation, that might have been what our fee would have been to do some part of that. But if it sounds like you're not going that direction, so we would just take that out. OK, just let me know, please. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Council member Fogle has been waiting patiently and hadn't asked a question. So I'm just if you can real quick, council member Fogle. Thank you. So I was just going to just make a comment and ask the question. So I do a lot of work in Louisville and I know about their arts program down in Louisville. So I want the question is, have you reached out to because there are with their children and culture base, they they do art through pain and trauma. And so have you reached out as a for a partner stakeholder, but one lacks or community inspired Lexington? Those will be some great avenues to get that culture piece underway. Have you reached out to any partners that we deal with to come in? Yes. And when you say they do you mean the Fund for the Arts in Louisville does does trauma and healing arts? As a matter of fact, we we have maybe not specifically Louisville, but one of our programs that we have started is our arts and health alliance. So we are working with many of our health organizations and hospitals in the community to do arts, not arts therapy, because that's a very specific field, but some group work and some individual work with patients, caregivers and family members in the arts space for healing and recovery. We are soon to be going out to implement programs at the veteran at the VA with veterans and arts. We've got several different programs in cancer centers, two of the cancer centers where we're working with patients and families. And we're working with the Fayette County Health Department for photo voice and wellness, mental health in the arts. And we're doing a photo voice project for the mental mental health with the county health department. Well, thank you for that. I just heard you say that you was mirroring the art program from Louisville. So I know that that is in their projects. So if you're mirroring it, I was just seeing if we are. No, I'm going to I'm going to jump in here and I apologize. Thank you. Thank you. Because I'm not on this committee, but thank you for letting me. All right. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Thank you, Amy, for the presentation and council members for your time. I apologize if you hadn't had an opportunity to ask your question, but you can find Amy responsive to that. So with that, council members, I think we come to the end of our agenda and I consider this meeting adjourned. Thank you.