[Angela Russell]

Dear Fellow Commissioners, The ordinances were finalized and submitted to the Commission Office today but after the Preliminary Agenda had been drafted with the note that they were not attached. I spoke with Drucilla and she will be attaching in the morning. Thank you, Angela Russell

[Shane Jackson]

Commissioner Russell,

I can tell you have spent a lot of time on these amendments. It looks much better. Thank you for all the time you have spent editing your original submission.

I have some continued reservations on the requirement for an external audit. May I make a suggestion on verbiage? Most of the defined services receive grants of $10,000. An audit will cost generally at least near this amount. Why should a small nonprofit even accept the funds if it costs as much in compliance costs as the grant itself?

May I suggest having a dollar theshold of the grant that triggers requiring an audit? Perhaps $50,000 or $100,000? Even if this doesn’t pertain to any nonprofits today, it would provide guardrails for many years if grants / contracts increase over time. I could potentially agree with this amendment. However, I feel the audit requirement for all funding, regardless of dollar amount, would be overreach for smaller nonprofits.

Respectfully submitted,

Shane

[Angela Russell]

Below in CAPS is the amendment that I plan to propose as discussed at our optional agenda review meeting. I will email copies of the entire ordinances with this item in red. I wanted you to have the language prior to the meeting so that you could properly consider the ordinances. Thank you for your consideration, Angela Russell

Section 2. Last paragraph
Upon approval of the Knox County Budget, any organization approved for funding pursuant to this article must sign a contractual agreement with the county and ensure compliance with all stated terms and conditions; including, providing Knox County’s internal audit department access to all financial, operational, and compliance records, and implementation of any recommendations and/or requirements that the internal audit department deems necessary. Included in the contract will be a requirement for the grant recipient to have an external audit with a clean unqualified opinion of each fiscal year they receive funds OF $50,000 OR GREATER as a requirement in order to continue receiving funding from Knox County in the following year.

[Courtney Durrett]

Commissioner Russell,
I would like to echo the comments made at our agenda review meeting about the incredible amount of work that you have put towards these ordinances. I am fine with the ordinance but have one ask/change. Would you be amenable to increasing the dollar amount that would trigger an external audit to $100,000? Setting the trigger at $100,000 better balances accountability with practicality and reserves full audits for higher-risk, higher-dollar awards while allowing smaller grants to be monitored through less burdensome oversight tools.
Thanks you!
Courtney

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