Louisiana Inspector General Review of Non-Profit Line-item appropriations, (10.6.26)

This October 23, 2026 article in “New Orleans City Business,” popped up in my news feed this morning. It is a report about a review by the Louisiana Inspector General concerning $113.5 million in state appropriations that went to 272 non-profits in the state of Louisiana. The IG makes 10 recommendations to strengthen the oversight for what Louisiana calls “Non-Profit Line-Item Funding.” Many should be applied to Cincinnati.

The link to the news article is: https://neworleanscitybusiness.com/blog/2026/10/23/louisiana-nonprofit-funding-oversight/

The Louisiana IG’s news release is posted above, along with their letter to the Louisiana Treasurer.

Cincinnati’s practice of making similar line-item grants to non-profit organizations has also been a top oversight concern of mine since the beginning.

For comparison purposes, in March 2026, the Cincinnati Oversight Project (COP) published its analysis of how many non-profit organizations had received funding from the City of Cincinnati, either directly or as a subgrantee. We counted 235 non-profits over the past year receiving more than $20 million.

The COP analysis is labeled “tentative,” based on the difficulty in tracing grantees and subgrantees and the amount of funding, over numerous programs, through a patchwork of documents. However, I believe the analysis provides a good sense of magnitude with respect to the number of external organizations providing services to the city and the amount of funding involved. Above all it shows an oversight challenge, some would say nightmare. It is also posted above.