Metro Arts audit-finance committee reviews budget status, audit implementation plan

The Metro Arts Commission Audit and Finance Committee at its inaugural meeting received a budget update, learned that the department has issued a conditional offer for a finance administrator and heard an implementation timeline to address 13 audit recommendations, Committee Chair Commissioner Jester said.

The committee’s interim executive director, Ashley Bachelder, told members Metro Arts is “well in the green” on current-year spending and attributed the underage largely to unfilled positions. She said the department has made a conditional offer to a candidate for the finance administrator role and expects to introduce that person at the next meeting.

The discussion centered on two linked tracks: preparing the department’s request for next year’s municipal budget and implementing the audit of Metro Arts’ financial processes. Bachelder walked commissioners through a monthly OMB budget accountability report, staffing growth figures and a set of budget modification requests that the department plans to present to council during departmental budget hearings.

Why it matters: The committee will oversee correction of audit findings and guide budget requests that could change grant funding and operations at Metro Arts. Bachelder said prioritized audit fixes and clearer grant controls are necessary before the agency resumes a normal grant cycle.

Key budget details and schedule - Bachelder showed a monthly Office of Management and Budget (OMB) budget accountability report indicating the department has not been over budget in several months and “is quite under budget,” in part because of vacancies. - Staffing grew from seven positions in FY2021 to 14.5 positions in FY2025, though several posts remain vacant. - The mayor’s budget is expected to be released on or before May 1; the city’s “State of Metro” presentation is scheduled for May 1 at 10 a.m. at the downtown library. Departmental budget hearings are scheduled; Metro Arts was scheduled for a hearing on May 14 at 4:40 p.m. - The department’s budget modification requests include restoring targeted savings (requested return of last year’s across-the-board reduction), a 25% increase in the grant budget and a request to move roughly $4,000,000 of grant-related funds back into the Metro Arts operating budget (the same funds are currently held in a separate account by ordinance). Bachelder said the $4,000,000 figure appears large in the packet because the grant funds are shown as consolidated rather than as a smaller increment. - Other requests include funding to relaunch and redesign restorative arts programming for court-involved youth and resources for community engagement and communications; Bachelder said the communications line had effectively been $0 in prior years.

Audit implementation: scope, timeline and priorities Bachelder reviewed the audit’s scope — financial processes, policies and internal controls covering July 1, 2022, through Feb. 29, 2024 — and said the audit identified multiple recommendations (labeled a through n in the auditor report). She described an implementation plan she expects to provide by April 30 that will list corrective actions, responsible parties and target completion dates for each recommendation.

She gave examples of planned corrective actions: written policies for compensatory time eligibility and approval; documented standard operating procedures (SOPs) for grant application review, scoring and award documentation; clearer panelist conflict-of-interest procedures and retained documentation; and stronger procurement and timekeeping controls. On grant controls, she noted Metro Arts processed about 65 grants this year and must ensure payments are made only after executed grant agreements.

On completed or in-progress items, Bachelder said the Metro Arts contract with Goodson Inc. for temporary staff was ended in July and that work with legal produced a community-panel conflict-of-interest process and training. She said access levels for the Submittable grant-management system have been reduced but a formal cost-benefit analysis of that system remains to be done.

Capacity and dependencies Bachelder said several audit items are contingent on the incoming finance administrator and planned citywide timekeeping migration to Kronos, expected at the end of the calendar year. She proposed prioritizing grants-related recommendations for completion by the end of the fiscal year and pushing personnel/payroll and procurement items into late 2025 and early 2026 to align with staffing and system changes.

Committee response and next steps Committee Chair Commissioner Jester and members expressed support for the proposed prioritization and timeline. Commissioners encouraged staff to return with more detailed SOPs and to schedule the next committee meeting in mid-June to review progress; Bachelder said she is amenable to meeting in two months.

No public comments were submitted to the committee during this meeting. The committee moved to adjourn by motion at the end of the session and the meeting closed.