Most Frequently Funded External Recipients 3.8.26

For the past 7 -10 years, Cincinnati  has steadily outsourced city functions to nonprofit organizations. Since 2020, the city’s budget has evolved to include tables in the annual budget for “Leveraged Support,” “Funding for Competitive Grant Programs,” and “City Operations Programmatic Support and Recipients.”

These categories represent funding for external organizations to carry out governmental functions.  This is not a slight against nonprofit organizations. But this outsourcing makes it much more difficult for taxpayers to know what is happening with public funds. i.e., transparency and accountability.

We have developed a data base of funding for those three categories of external support based on city budget documents for the period 2020 to 2026.

The first thing you notice is that many of the same organizations receive funding every year. Meaning: the process is not a true competition and more significantly, these organizations are essentially part of the city government without the transparency and accountability.

The link above will take yo to the list of “Most Frequently Funded Recipients.” We will be posting additional analysis that could be of interest.

Episode 41 of “Citizen Watchdog with Todd Zinser,” discusses the increase in the property tax milage rate approved by the city council in 2022, just in time to maximize the tax revenues anticipated from the reassessment of property values hitting homeowners at the time.  The council raised the rate to the maximum 6.1% and it has remained there since.

In putting Episode 41 together, I came across a motion submitted by Mayor Pureval on December 14, 2022, indicating how he intended to spend the increased tax revenues. The motion is posted below. I annotated the Mayor’s motion to show how his proposed spending ties directly back to the tax increase.

The motion also required a report from the Administration “on detailed funding and implementation of these programs before April 15, 2023.”  (4 months to get it done)

On January 7, 2026, I submitted a records request for the report. Today, (2.11.26) the city responded indicating that no report was ever submitted to council.  That has happened before on other reports, like the justification for closing CPD District 5.

The problem is that the council’s request is actually a request on behalf of the council’s constituents. It is just ignored and the council does not bother to follow up. It gives the impression that these types of request are just made for show.

Also, ICYMI, the Mayor and council missed the deadline for certifying a tax increase measure for the May 5^th ballot. The deadline was February 4^th.

Center Hill Landfill presentation

Center Hill Transmittal, city manager 

The city council is fixin to approve $12 million at tomorrow’s meeting (1.22.26) for another solar energy project.  Remember, the city already has the New Market solar farm. The location for this new project is the Center Hill landfill.

I’m still trying to gather information about what the city council is doing except it doesn’t seem that they’ve made a very good business case for spending $12 million.  By their own admission, it is all about the Green Cincinnati Plan and achieving “carbon neutrality” by 2050. Some, including me, call that a colossal waste of money.

We need to know what due diligence, if any, was carried out by the city council.  For example, good luck trying to find out performance or financial information about the city’s existing solar farm.  How is that working out? Is it performing as projected? Shouldn’t that part of the city council’s due diligence.

Twelve million dollars could cover a lot of neighborhood quality of life needs, maintenance and upgrade of public housing for seniors, food delivery programs. Or greater financial support for the pension system for city employees that is $800 million in the hole.  It just does not make sense to me.

We are looking into Cincinnati’s use of State & Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, which were the pandemic relief funds specifically directed to local governments

Most people are probably under the impression that the “COVID money” for cities were intended to help the cities just “keep the lights on.”  That is not the case.

The Treasury Department used a formula to determine what cities received, not a calculation of a city’s fiscal needs.  As a result, during the COVID years, Cincinnati received more than $150 million in discretionary funds to spend within very loose eligibility requirements.

This is Cincinnati’s original 2021 plan for the COVID money. A records request has been submitted for a more detailed accounting of how those funds were used.

Funding Priorities for Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund 3.24.21

Funding Priorities for Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund Attachment reconciliation highlighted

Funding Priorities for Coronavirus Local Fiscal Recovery Fund 4.8.21

SLFRF-2025-Recovery-Plan-Performance-Report_Monica-Morton

City-Of-Cincinnati-Ohio_2024-Recovery-Plan_SLT-1806

The city council covered a lot of ground about the city’s current and future finances during their two December meetings. The narrative about the projected $30 million budget deficit and the open talk about an earnings tax increase signal where the city government is headed – an earnings tax increase.

The narrative incudes repeated references to how the city no longer has COVID money. “Oh no! What are we going to do without COVID money?”  “I guess we just have to raise taxes. Isn’t it obvious?” At least that is what the politicians will likely be saying.

Keep in mind that, according to the mayor, the city has recovered from COVID. It is one of his major accomplishments. Presumably, that means that all the lost revenues experienced during COVID, are once again filling the city’s coffers.  Since the primary purpose of ARPA funds was “revenue replacement,” that must mean that the problem is solved. COVID money is no loger needed anyway, right?

Also, most people are under the impression that the city received ARPA money based on how much revenue the city was projected to lose as a result of COVID. But that is not how it worked. The ARPA funding was formula based. I haven’t looked at the formula itself, but formula funding is much easier to distribute and less strict about its use. Chances are that the ARPA funding was greater than needed to cover eligible costs and as a result, there was new or extra spending that occurred with COVID money.

So, we need to examine exactly what the city did with our COVID money.  How much of the COVID spending was “a must have” and how much was “nice to have.” The city was required to file annual reports with the federal government about its use of ARPA money. The 2024 and 2025 reports are posted above.

We will be examining the COVID funding issue and reporting back soon.  My sense is that our examination will provide greater clarity, at least for this part of the politicians’ (and the Cincinnati Futures Commission) “tax increase narrative.”

On December 28, 2025, I posted the following update about the city’s 2025 Covid report:

FB 12.28.25 Update about City Covid Report