Jacksonville City Council approved legislation Nov. 12 to ensure some Jacksonville-area nonprofits will continue receiving federal grant money while a bureaucratic delay prevents them from submitting a required audit.
Council voted 15-0 to approve Ordinance 2025-0812, which applies to Jacksonville nonprofits receiving more than $1 million in federal funds. That money is often disbursed through cities and states. Council members Matt Carlucci, Rory Diamond, Terrance Freeman and Reggie Gaffney Jr. were away from the dias during the vote.
City ordinance requires those organizations to submit a single audit to the city’s Grants & Contract Compliance Division under the Finance Department. These audits, which are more in-depth than a standard audit, require a compliance supplement from the federal Office of Management and Budget. Under city ordinance, the audits must be filed within four months of the end of the nonprofits’ fiscal year for the organizations to receive their grants.
Typically, OMB publishes the supplement around April or May each year. However, the office failed to do so before October. With the government shut down since Oct. 1, pending an expected U.S. House vote to reopen it, OMB hasn’t published the supplement since.
Without that supplement, nonprofits would become noncompliant and could not receive city funds.
The ordinance, proposed by Council member Michael Boylan, allowed nonprofits to file OMB’s compliance supplement within 120 days of its completion as opposed to 120 days from the end of the nonprofits’ fiscal year.
Without an extension, Jacksonville’s applicable nonprofits could be looking at rapidly depleting funds. Jacksonville accountant Linda Forde, who specializes in nonprofit work, said the organizations could see higher demand for their services due to the shutdown and reductions of Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program benefits.
“Many of the nonprofits have three to six months of reserve built into their operating budgets,” Forde said, speaking before Boylan’s bill was introduced. “When SNAP doesn’t process for people here on Saturday, they’re going to have even more people who don’t have the ability to go get groceries.
“It’s going to put an additional strain on the system, so that three to six months may very well become one or two months of funds because of the additional need.”
Six of Forde’s nonprofit clients are affected by the lack of the OMB supplement as of Nov. 1. They are the Lutheran Social Services food pantry, Northeast Florida AIDS Network, the Clay Behavioral Health Center, the Literary Alliance of Northeast Florida, the Downtown Ecumenical Services Center that provides basic needs to Downtown residents, and Epic-Cure Inc., which works in hunger-prevention with children and veterans.
Without government funding, which can make up 15% to 20% of a nonprofit’s revenue, some organizations could face challenges to stay afloat. Forde said she was concerned that a longer shutdown could mean that Jacksonville loses some of its nonprofits.
“They could go away, and it leaves a huge gap in our community,” Forde said. “We could lose critical nonprofit services in our area, if the government stays shut down, and they stay on the noncompliance list for the city.”
Forde expressed support for Boylan’s bill, saying the 120-day grace period would “give everyone enough time to get things completed.”