Carmel committee urges formal tracking, agreements after review of city support for partner events and affiliated nonprofits

The Affiliate Review Committee on July 2, 2025, reviewed how the City of Carmel provides in‑kind and monetary support to partner-run events and city‑affiliated nonprofit organizations and recommended the city adopt consistent tracking systems, require written agreements for recipients of city support and stop using the city legal office to set up outside 501(c)(3) entities.

Committee members said the review was prompted by uneven recordkeeping, concentration of subsidy dollars in a few events and uncertainty about when outside sponsorships are recorded and tracked in the city’s accounting systems.

Why it matters: City leaders told the committee that large amounts of staff time and subsidy dollars flow to a small set of events and organizations, and that without consistent documentation the city cannot reliably justify allocations during the annual budget process or show that sponsor dollars are being used as intended.

Most important findings and recommendations

The report and committee discussion identified three main areas of support to review: in‑kind support (street closures, barricades, public safety staffing and event setup/teardown), direct monetary support (subsidies and grants) and city‑affiliated charitable organizations. The staff presentation, compiled from department records, reported year‑to‑date figures as of June 25, 2025.

Staff advised that in‑kind support is driven primarily by the street department, Carmel Police Department and Carmel Fire Department; those three departments provide the bulk of event labor and public‑safety coverage. The committee heard that Christkindlmarket accounted for roughly 85.5% of the listed in‑kind total in the dataset, and that the Center for the Performing Arts received about 81.8% of monetary support shown in the presentation for the period reviewed.

Cityworks and hours tracking

Director Higginbotham, who oversees street operations, told the committee that Cityworks is used in the street department to log event hours and that the city recorded roughly 8,200 man‑hours for Christkindlmarket in the most recent market period and about 16,000 man‑hours for special events overall in 2024. He said overtime related to market work was limited — about 73 hours — because supervisors deployed large crews and prioritized the market work when required.

Samantha Karnes, corporation counsel and the staff presenter, said the data compiled for 2024 and 2025 are incomplete in some departments and that one recommendation of the report is to require consistent, departmentwide time and cost tracking so future totals are comparable and auditable.

Monetary support, contracts and sponsorships

Committee members asked staff how sponsorship and donated funds are handled. City staff told the committee that sponsorship dollars are generally posted to the city’s grant or gift funds, which are outside the general fund but part of the city treasury, and that some sponsorship agreements are multi‑year. Zach (finance/operations staff) said the city maintains several gift/grant funds and that sponsorship money earmarked for events is accounted for in those funds, but that detailed project‑level attribution is managed in spreadsheets today because the accounting system does not yet support easy, project‑level reporting.

Samantha Karnes told the committee that some large annual subsidies are not memorialized in written agreements and singled out a referenced subsidy figure of $2,250,000 that "doesn't have a contract attached to it." The presenter recommended that the city require written agreements or grant templates for monetary and in‑kind support so responsibilities and reporting obligations are documented.

Sponsorship treatment and unused sponsor dollars

Committee members asked how sponsor dollars earmarked for a specific event are handled if the event does not return the next year. Staff answered that funds are held in the gift/grant funds and that reallocation of unused, event‑earmarked sponsorship money would require a new agreement with the sponsor and that options such as applying the funds to another event or treating them as a donation are negotiated with the sponsor.

Process, thresholds and governance

Committee members discussed possible thresholds and governance models. Mayor Finkham (present at the meeting) and several council members preferred a process that links event support to strategic goals and to the city budget rather than a fixed statutory percentage. Multiple members suggested using a public‑space or BPW (Board of Public Works)‑style request form that puts the initial reporting burden on the event organizer and documents insurance, scope, duration, and the city resources requested.

Legal roles and affiliated nonprofits

Samantha Karnes recommended that the city attorney's office stop providing legal services to outside nonprofit entities that are not clients of the city government (mayor, council and city administration). The presentation listed a number of city‑affiliated charitable organizations and sister‑city groups and noted that most remain active; one, the Carmel Cleanup Crew, was in the process of dissolving. The report found incomplete documentation for board appointments or founding authority for some of those entities and recommended clarifying governance and appointment records.

No formal votes; next steps

The committee did not take formal votes on the recommendations. Members asked staff to prepare a consolidated list of recommendations, assign owners and timelines, and provide missing financial details. The chair offered to compile the work product into a final recommendations document for committee review and possible presentation to the full council and the mayor during the budget cycle.

Meeting context and implementation considerations

Committee members repeatedly returned to two operational needs: (1) deploy an enterprise resource planning (ERP) or other central system that can tie labor hours, sponsorships and grant funds to specific projects and events, and (2) adopt a consistent intake and agreement template so the city can document services provided, funding sources, reporting requirements and sponsor terms. Staff said pursuing an ERP would require counsel and executive decisions about resources and implementation.

What the committee did not decide

No binding policy changes were adopted at the meeting. Committee members discussed possible ordinance thresholds, but several said they preferred budgeted ceilings and a transparent request/approval process tied to strategic priorities rather than a fixed statutory percentage. The committee also did not adopt a retroactive compliance deadline for existing affiliated nonprofits; members asked counsel to consider whether a grandfathering period or staged compliance approach would be appropriate.

Who this affects

The recommendations, if implemented, would affect event organizers that partner with the city, recipients of monetary subsidies, city departments that supply in‑kind services (notably Streets, Carmel Police Department and Carmel Fire Department), the city legal office and the city finance and budget teams responsible for gift/grant funds and accounting.

What's next

Staff and committee members agreed to produce a written recommendations package with specific owners and timelines for the city administration and the council to consider during the next budget cycle. The committee indicated it would reconvene if members conclude a final review meeting is useful after staff compiles outstanding data.