so welcome to the 2024 neighborhood star pre-proposal uh Workshop happy to have you here so the star program has been going on since 1995 we have invested millions of dollars in capital and Arts and Cultural projects um throughout the city of St Paul so we're really excited to do this in I believe round 30 this year so thanks for joining us here's a little agenda for today's meeting um we will do introductions hopefully in the chat I think there are too many of us to go around and say who we all are so please Our Guest join us um and introduce yourselves say who you are what business and organization you're from and anything else you'd like us to know I am joined by many of my city of St Paul colleagues and I will let them introduce themselves as they speak throughout this presentation and I will just introduce myself quickly I'm Erin Lewis I am the program coordinator for the neighborhood star program and this is my second Grant round so I'm really excited to see how this one goes um we will go over today some program information just a little history the application process compliance if everyone could mute that would be great um the compliance that applies to star projects how to use our Zoom Grant system and then additional resources and question and answer so I want to leave a lot of time at the end for your questions so if you can can save your questions until the end that is helpful if there is something really urgent also please feel free to uh raise your hand or jump in or put something in the chat so a little bit about the star program it was started in 1993 when the Minnesota state legislature allowed the city of St Paul to Levy a half cent sales tax um to make Capital Improvements in the city of St Paul and to create the sales tax revitalization program which is where the word star comes from star funds are used for a lot of different things they're used for just general Capital Improvements in the downtown and St Paul area including the River Center 10% go to our sister program which is the cultural star program for arts and culture organizations and then 50% of those funds are for the neighborhood star program which are grants for Capital Improvements in St Paul a really important part of the star program is the star board so the neighborhood star board is made up of 21 members three from each board that are appointed by the mayor they serve as volunteers and as The Advisory board for all of the funding recommendations so everyone who applies through a star program will get to talk with the uh neighborhood star board they will make their recommendations to the mayor and the city council who do have final say about funding decisions and here's a little picture of us at our holiday party we're a nice group the app application process how can you apply so you can apply one time per year for neighborhood star funds um that period is open right now so we open and applications are um due at the latest May 15th by 4M we will talk about how you should submit earlier than that but that's our application period for this year we anticipate granting about two and a half million this year so that number can change a little bit depending on tax Collections and project closeouts but that's that's the number we're kind of thinking about for now and everything is subject to the neighborhood star guidelines and those can be found at stpaul.gov endar you're going to hear me say that a lot because so much is on our website um but just broadly the way the program works all of your applications need to be for Capital Improvements so those are physical bricks and mortar improvements it must be for a project or a property in St Paul proper and you must be an eligible applicant so that's public nonprofit or for-profit entities located in or doing business in St Paul also City departments churches and religious organizations can apply but they usually have to be in partnership with others and there's some other guidelines that you can read around those entities if you're one of those everything is expected to have a life of seven or more years so we want these improvements to last at least seven years um and be a long-term investment in St Paul all of our proposals are reviewed by The Neighborhood star board we'll talk a little bit about what that looks like and there is a onetoone match for projects requesting over $50,000 some additional how to apply information everything is online so all of our applications have to come online through Zoom grants um you can link to zoom directly from our website which is stpaul.gov NSTAR um there's a big button that says apply and you can apply there um if you have some issues with technology or just need some additional resources or additional translation besides what's translated on our website um please do check out the St Paul public libraries they have Community Specialists who are really wonderful working with our residents um and they are familiar with the program and they are ready to help so that's a good first resource if needed be sure to submit your proposal in advance of May 15th so even though you have until the afternoon of May 15th we always have technical issues Zoom grants can get overloaded um and unfortunately I have seen folks have everything ready to go and they just can't get that submit to work just because of technical issues so if you walk away with nothing else from this walk away with get it in at least a day or two in advance just to make sure that technology isn't theer um every application must have all required attachments we'll go through what those are in a little little bit and we will also go through Zoom grants today how to use it um some common issues it's a pretty userfriendly system there are some fees associated with the application so there's a $75 application fee if your request is for 25,000 or less and 125 if your request is for 25,000 or more there is also a 1% closing fee for any awarded funds so just something to keep in mind as you go through um and then application questions can be found at stpaul.gov NSTAR to help you prepare your application in advance so if you want to write it in word and then kind of cut cut and paste into Zoom I find that to be really helpful so those are all there online for you here's just another snapshot of what the annual round process looks like so some key dates the applications are open right now we're having the application Workshop currently they will be open until 400 p.m. on May 15th but hopefully you're submitting earlier than that um once all those applications are in we will go through an internal staff review process and so that's just screening for eligibility um making sure that any sort of eyes are dotted as needed um and we will work with applicants in that process just do a little extra screening from there the board will start their interview process process um so everyone who is an eligible applicant that puts something in will get 10 minutes with the board and that's just time to provide additional information um maybe share something you didn't have in your application or for the board to ask questions once the board goes through that process um they will make their recommendations to the mayor's office so they'll come up with a list of recommended funding for the projects they'll send that over to the mayor's office and from there um in the summer the mayor and the city council will come up with their recommendations they usually Hue pretty closely to what the board suggests and then in August we're hoping um the city council will finalize those funding decisions we will award um or we will notify awardees in August and we'll get started in Contracting in August and September um just to note that this is the anticipated timeline so when we're working with the mayor's office in the city council competing priorities can can come in and so this could change um but this is what we're thinking for timing so keep that in mind as you're thinking through what your Project's going to look like and what your timelines are all right what makes a competitive proposal so neighborhood star is scored and reviewed across three different domains the first is public purpose how does your project help make a better SA Paul for everyone so does it contribute to the tax base does it create or retain jobs does it Revitalize a vacant storefront um advanc climate action sustainability or resilience contribute to cultural diversity or Advance equity and we're not expecting that projects are doing all of these things but please share how it does some of these things um another area is community need how does this project address an identified neighborhood goal or need and how is the project created um with Community input whatever that Community looks like for you and then finally capacity is the project financially feasible will it remain for seven or more years and is your organization or business ready to successfully Implement and administer the project or program some of the required attachments are here actually all of them um so you'll want to make sure that you include these in your application so that includes evidence of site control which is just something that says I can make improvements to this property could be a lease purchase agreement title um evidence that you are in good standing with the Minnesota secretary of state contractor's estimates um and this is just so we have a good idea kind of of the scope of your project and we understand that you have a good idea of what it might cost you're not beholden to working with the contractors that you include in the application um but is just something that we ask you include as a a scope um document a project Pro fora uh which is basically a cash flow document we do have an example of what a proor looks like on our website that you are welcome to use past two years of either tax returns or audited financials whichever is relevant to your organization if you are a startup business a business plan can be substituted instead resumés of the project manager or other key management for the project photos of your proposed project site or service area um and I will say the board loves photos so please include um good photos and if applicable uh subgrant and subl loone guidelines so those are for the folks that are applying to regant funds um if you're doing that please include your guidelines and if applicable additional sources of funds so if other funding sources are going to um complete your project make sure that you include that information you can also include some optional attachments letters of support conflict of interest policy a balance sheet a W9 um really anything that you think would be helpful for us to better understand your project really important to note if you can't provide a required attachment that is okay but you do have to let us know why and you do have to upload something so you know if for some reason you can't get I don't know a resume on time please just upload a note that says here's why I can't get this attachment and here's what what else you might need to know um just so we can say that your application is complete we will say it's incomplete if you upload something that just says available upon request um this is the request so please be as thorough as you can yeah I see a hand raised hi my name is pay and I'm just curious about the resume for the project manager is that for the the contractor's resume or is that the managing resume for the organization either or yes and um I think just whatever helps us understand that capacity piece like somebody who is managing the project on either side knows what they're doing they can um get all the work done so whatever makes sense for your project is just fine thank you sure all right awarded funds if you're awarded funds here's a little bit of information to know neighborhood star is a disbursement and reimbursement grant program so we are um asking everyone to incur expenses before we're going to be able to get money out the door it's not the kind of grant program where you apply and then you get a check for $50,000 so keep that in mind there's a fair amount of documentation that goes into getting the funds um like I said before there's a 1% closing fee on awarded funds so if you got a $50,000 Grant there'd be a closing fee of $500 reimbursement requests um have some stipulations on them so they must be for Star eligible activities per your contract so be careful about uh what you apply for and what you put in your contract because that's what we're going to hold you to when you're asking for funding um it must be for uh activities incurred after the funding is approved d by the city council so again that is expected to be late summer early fall but really important to keep that date in mind if you've already started a project we're not going to be able to pay for things that happened ahead of that approval date um it must include sufficient documentation of the expense um so an invoice or a receipt and it must be approved by City compliance and star staff so there's some layers of approval that happen we ask that requests be submitted once per month until project completion we can be flexible on that um and then we often have a 5% retainage on construction as well until projects are complete and we have U evidence of completion so the process can take up to four weeks from the time you ask for funding to the time it gets to you in part that's because we still use the mail so it takes a little time to get a check out the door but hopefully that is like the the most lengthy uh version it typically will take less than 4 weeks but I just do want to let people know that it can take some time um so as you're thinking about your cash flow that's something to really really keep in mind and I am going to turn it over to a couple of my colleagues to talk a little bit about Contracting and working with project managers hi my name is Nia Hardman I am one half of the neighborhood star project management team um so you'll if you're awarded funds you'll be working with either myself or Tim so I'll pass it over to Tim to introduce himself hi I'm Tim Scott uh I'm one of the other project managers on the neighborhood Star team so I'll probably be working with some of you as well nice to meet you all so um if you're awarded funds uh Tim or myself will be your main point of contact for contract execution compliance and for fund dispersement um and then from the time that your projects are awarded funds and then those funds are approved um you'll have a year after that to get under contract um though getting under contract can be a lengthy process um due to compliance and insurance requirements so uh we recommend that you get in contact with us as soon as possible to discuss the process um even if you're not ready to start your project right away um but you can expect to hear from Tim or I within you know a few weeks after funding is approved um and once your contract is executed um they'll be good for a period of two years and Tim or myself will work with you through the duration of your project formative thanks Dian so we're GNA head into compliance this is really important parts of what may attach to your project and hopefully will help you plan ahead for um the timeline around your project how much things might cost and what are going to be some of the expectations from the city like Nia mentioned um your project managers are going to help you kind of navigate this process um but there is a lot to keep in mind so uh entities that do business with the city of St Paul must meet compliance requirements and those requirements are set by the city to ensure that local state federal and funer requirements are met sometimes that's simply referred to as iance you'll hear that word thrown around a lot that's what it means um contract compliance requirements are determined based on Project type and cost so those will be different for every project um but some compliance related to things like human rights labor standards like minimum wage and insurance are required of all of our projects so that will apply to everybody um we'll review the most common compliance requirements today and again um Nia and Tim will help if you're awarded funds to figure out how to do all of this um when it comes to Contracting but just really important to keep this stuff in mind before you um embark on a project um and that's largely largely because compliance may increase the cost of projects and it may extend project timelines so just plan accordingly um as we go so I will hand it over to my colleague Mark to talk about insurance thank you um I appreciate it um so just a little bit of background now the insurance can be um frustrating and and um maybe it might feel at times disproportionate to um the size of your project and we understand that um from from my standpoint as the risk manager for the city um I need to have compliance but I also so don't want to get in the way of of really valuable projects that are brought um brought in front of me the the biggest one is and we we ask for what we call certificates of insurance you'll get that through your insurance agent um we ask for $1.5 million of coverage for general liability now couple things with that the reason is um is by Minnesota statute the the the state of Minnesota um enacted a law that says um that said cities can be sued up to 1.5 million so we ask if we're giving out funds that we be covered for the liability that the city could face uh if there's if there's something that goes wrong with the with the project and so the city wants to protect itself when it's giving out money which is obviously understandable the problem is when the legislature did a $1.5 million coverage what they didn't really factor in is that no insurance companies really sell $1.5 million um coverages that that can be difficult we'll work with you um the the biggest thing I can tell you is um getting a $1 million policy plus an umbrella for a million that's what there's increments they're sold in that will almost always I've never seen it in fact differently than this um be cheaper than trying to find a $1.5 million general liability policy so if you contact your insurance company and you say or your agent say I need a $1.5 million um insurance policy they may quote you something that's really high if they can even find it um so our suggestion would be is that you either try and get a 1.5 million or do a 1 million plus um a $1 million umbrella policy the big things the other things that we're going to want to know is if you have commercial vehicles um we have policy limits on that that we want you to um um what you to comply with a lot of times folks don't have that but they may have personal they may be driving personal automobiles in furtherance of the contract totally understood that happens a lot um we just want to know um that those vehicles are insured at least at the state minimum so if we can have something that shows that either you or your employees um that are working on this contract have Auto Insurance on the vehicle that they're going to be driving um we also require Workers Compensation Insurance that um sometimes just isn't isn't necessary for your businesses we also understand that um we have a very simple certificate form where you can indicate that you are not um you do not have to have workers compensation insurance coverage in the state of Minnesota we'll send you out that form you fill it out it literally takes maybe 30 seconds to fill out that form but it is something I'm not going to approve a contract if I don't know about work workers compensation um coverage whether you don't have it um or you do so I'm I am going to need those things so those are the really the basics that I need I need the 1 Point 5 million under general liability and that has a a bunch of different Little Boxes but those boxes will be filled by the Certificate of Insurance and like I say the best way to get that probably is a $1 million general liability and then an umbrella um I need to know about automobiles that anything that's used is insured and the workers compensation those are the main things that I need to do before I can improve um a contract and my goal is to approve the contract so that's all I have Ain thank you thanks Mark I think we have a question about insurance are UEI number and cage code required I'm gonna say no because I honestly don't know what UEI I'm assuming that's unemployment but I'm not sure uh we don't re the UN if it is unemployment um we don't need that unemployment is really a a personal Covenant between you and your employees and doesn't affect the city and I don't know what a cage um code requirements of if if it can be that for if that question can be um enlarged I I may be able to help um and when you're talking about that that's a good point to buying a to contractors we if if if you have the insurance requirements that protect the city that's um um um that's that's what we care about because our contractors between you um and the city for the dispersements of funds you may very well have subcontractors and I would encourage you to have your subcontractors to have insurance workers compensation all of those kinds of things um but our issue is that you have it and um so I'm not going to get involved in looking at whether or not your contracts with your subcontractors have sufficient Insurance um I'm just really mostly concerned for my approval that that you as the grantee have the subis insurance I hope that helps yeah and for the the other codes Linda I think you were asking um I think we asked for your like tax ID number I don't think you have to worry too much about um Sam or other um Federal codes but um but if it comes up let me know um all right thanks Mark um here's his contact information so again um we are available for questions but and we'll post us on our website but please be in touch as you have questions as we go so we will move along to some human rights and equal op equal Economic Opportunity or hero compliance and I will turn this over to Beth and her team teric good morning everybody uh thank you so much for the opportunity to be here I am joined by two investigators um Stephanie bamer and Pia Yang so I'm going to let them present our information Stephanie thanks Beth good morning I'm Stephanie and I work within the city of St Paul's human rights division of the human rights and equal Economic Opportunity department and what I want to make sure everyone's aware of is that the city of St Paul does have a human rights ordinance which prohibits discrimination based on a person's protected class so you'll see um on our slide here it shares um all the different protected classes that are covered by the ordinance and the areas that were um that there's prohib all the areas where we prohibit discrimination um our team our role is investigators is to conduct intakes with folks when they feel they've been discriminated against to file charges and conduct investigations but also um our team is available to provide education to any Community member um in any capacity as far as if you have questions about the ordinance um and what it covers and I would say we very frequently most often get um inquiries and complaints from folks in the areas of employment in housing and public accommodations so something to be aware of and often the protected classes most often are race and disability so just to share that that bit of information um but we're available as a resource to anyone anytime they have questions about the ordinance thank you good morning everyone my name is Pia and the Labor Standard division within hero works not only to enforce but also educate businesses and employees and the community members about the city's two Labor Standard ordinance which are um earn SI save time also known as ESS and minimum wage um ESS um has been in effect within the city since 2018 as you all may be aware the state of Minnesota also enacted ESS that went live in January of this year uh employ employee who works within the GE Geographic boundaries of St Paul can use ESS for themselves family members um who are sick experiencing domestic abuse sexual assault stocking um if there's a place of their place employment is closed for Public Health crisis such as covid or if their place of care or school closes for inclement weather um an employee can earn one hour for every 30 hours worked um and they can start using ESS after working 80 hours um the city minimum wage changes every January 1st or July 1st depending on the business size currently the macro business minimum wage is 1557 and the minimum wage for large small and micro businesses will change on July 1st of this year uh feel free to reach out to our team if you have any questions regarding essc and minimum wage um as it applies to yourself your businesses your employees thank you thank you so much we're going to move into affirmative action and I am sorry I guess I don't know if ya is on the call yaia are you on the call I am oh yay all right so for affirma Action contract clients requirement of any developer I'm sorry I I've been doing this for so long so you have the screen you could read it but I'm just going to speak from what I usually talked for affirmative action requirements uh the city requires anybody receiving money that's 50,000 or more to have an affirma action plan certified with the city of St Paul um the affirma action plan is certified for a two-year period and there is a $75 V associated with that and at the moment I could only take checks so um you'll have to send that in all of this is required when and if you are awarded uh star money 50,000 or more or cumulative of star money and other money that's coming directly from the city uh you will be required to have the fermental action plan there is no exemption for nonprofit vendors or vendor with no employees or LLC I see for start um grantee sometime we have um a holding company or LLC for the project um in that case that entity that is the award te for the star money is the recipient that need to have the affirment action plan even though there's no employees that's just how the law is written in the ordinance so that's for affirmative action plan obviously uh Pro your project manager will make sure that you have the affirmative action Plan before your contract is executed with the city of St Paul or City Department director sign the um your contract um and you see there's also a website where you could check your company status as well I'm always here as well call me or email me for status or help with filling out the application or just more information about a forance ATT action thanks you yep thank you the next area of compliance is prevailing wage I think that Ethan our expert is not here today so I will go over a little bit about that um prevailing wage is something that will apply to your project if it involves any kind of construction work if you are receiving any amount of public money and if the total cost of your project meets or exceeds $25,000 um if there's Federal money that threshold is $22,000 and what prevailing wage is is basically a minimum wage for construction workers so your contract with us will have list of what those hourly rates are um and if prevailing wage is triggered on your project your contractors will need to ensure that they are paying those um their workers at those wages and um provide documentation of that what you have to do if prevailing wage applies is when you're looking for contractors make sure that you tell them that prevailing wage will apply most contractors are going to be really familiar with this um and every once in a while some contractors don't like working with projects that have prevailing wage so it's good to know um make sure to include the prevailing wage paperwork that we give you in your contract to all of your contractors and um make sure that they are submitting those payroll uh documentation it's outlined in your contract it's all electronic um but that is something that they will need to do for us to approve payment requests um and if they don't pay the required rates to their workers or fail to submit their payroll it could result in a delay of payment from us um all of this will be discussed again um if you're awarded funds there is a Compliance Conference that you'll have um to talk through all of these things with your project managers and our compliance team but if you have questions in the meantime there is this contract compliance email address you can use and you can contact Ethan at this phone number and email address uh we're going to move into vendor Outreach I believe Brett is going to talk to us about that yes thank you eron uh hi everyone I'm Brett Bey uh I'm a compliance coordinator with the city and I administer the vent outreach program uh the vendor outreach program is a small business inclusion ordinance uh that generally applies to projects with any amount of City funds uh with the total development cost over $50,000 um that's how it normally works um but it applies to Star Wars slightly differently with star wars vop requirements actually only uh come to apply if the starward itself is over $50,000 uh regardless of the amount of private funding that may be attached to the project um or if there is any other kinds of City funds in the project other than the Star Award when VP does apply uh the ordinance establishes a goal 25% of all subcontracting opportunity should be awarded to certified small businesses and then there are sub goals off that that you can see there 5% uh uh go to minority owned small businesses MBE 10% go to women-owned small businesses wbees and the last 10% go to uh General small businesses sbes um and it's our C program um who certifies certifies businesses under each of those categories um and they maintain a searchable database of all those C certified businesses that can count towards vop uh count towards VP goals um and you can go to the next slide here eron I won't get too much more in the weeds um you know we'll be this would all be discussed a lot more in depthly uh at at a pre- bid or pre-con meeting post award like Aaron was saying earlier but generally um you first have to the the first thing you have to do is access the CT directory um look to find any certified businesses uh that you may be able to reach out to with any opportunity uh that there may be on the project um we usually suggest you reach out to a minimum of three per but that's not a hard rule um you should also keep track of all the SE vendors you may reach out to um in the event goals aren't met then the next thing we have to ask for is what's called good faith effort which is just any proof you can provide um that you tried to meet goals and then sort of the last thing is depending on the size of the project there's an online reporting component um where General Contractors have to report payments to their subs and then the subs have to confirm or deny those payments um that's really you know the super brief overview um but we do like highlighting as well that our CT list is a great resource um you know for you to find vendors that can do work you may need regardless of whether or not the vop applies um we definitely definitely encourage you to go check it out if you haven't before learn how to to to search in it um it's a great resource you can go to the last side there and um so that is pretty much it my email is there if anyone ever has any questions um same goes for um the contact information for our CT program um if you have any questions at all don't hesitate to reach out but otherwise that's all for me thank you Erin spr so just a couple more compliance areas to get through just to let yall know where we are at um Minnesota business subsidy law our contact for that is not here so I'll talk a little bit about that um business subsidy is uh something created through Statute in a city council resolution that says that um any business receiving state or local government assistance must have a defined public purpose and that recipients must must set goals for job creation wages and benefits to be achieved within two years of receiving assistance um and luckily in your application you'll be asked to talk about your public purpose so um business subsidy applies to recipients receiving a subsidy of $25,000 or more in Grant funds unless you um are exempt and here's the Little Star about when you might be exempt most people are not exempt um annual reporting for business subsidy is required by March 1st of each year it's not complicated reporting but just know that there is a reporting deadline um in March and if business subsidy applies and you have an award of over $150,000 there will be some other requirements um such as a notice in public hearing and specific wage and job goals to be attained within two years with a five-year commitment um to continue operations if you have questions on business subsidy Jenny Wolf is our expert um on the economic development team and here is her contact information Jenny is also our expert on St Paul living wage um which applies to recipients receiving $100,000 or more in a city business subsidy unless again you have an exemption which is most people do not um but what the living wage ordinance says is that recipients and qualifying tenants must pay a living wage to each employee or independent contractor who is employed in the location for which the subsidy was provided for either 3 years or the term of the start Grant agreement living with wages are determined at 130% of federal poverty for a family of four which is this year 1950 per hour or 110% of the federal poverty rate for a family of four if health benefits are included and that is 1650 in 20124 um the wage rates change every year in January you'll be updated on that if it applies and there is an annual certification uh requirement demonstrating compliance if this attaches to your project again Jenny Wolf is the contact if you have questions uh next is Sustainable Building ordinance with Kurt hi Kurt yeah good morning thank you Erin uh my name is Kurt Schulz I manage the Sustainable Building ordinance for the city of St Paul Mayor Carter and the city council are committed to reducing the environmental footprint of the city and we take a number of measures to to do that uh We've set a Rive climate action goals uh and emission reduction goals both for City operations and the city as a whole and one of the tools we use to help reach those climate action goals and reduce emissions is the Sustainable Building ordinance now I won't spend a lot of time talking about it because it will only apply to those projects receiving more than $200,000 in public assistance that means assistance uh from the star program or any other public funds that come to the project through the city so that could be state federal uh met Council and so forth it applies to uh both new construction and renovation projects and uh there are two basic uh key requirements to the Ordinance one is that all projects must be certified through one of the eligible Green Building standards such as lead Minnesota B3 green communities or green star are the uh eligible standards and then we have a separate set of uh green requirements uh that are found in the St Paul overlay and so regardless of what Green Building standards you need to comply with the overlay requirements as well and those those include such things as um uh energy uh efficiency uh um indoor Environmental Quality uh construction waste diversion Indoor Water use conservation and things like that so there's a lot in the ordinance uh and if you should receive more than $200,000 uh in public assistance uh we'll sit down and have a detailed conversation about what the what the ordinance requires I think that's all I'm going to talk about at this moment please reach out to me the earlier the better as soon as you think you might be receiving an award uh of this amount let me know and uh we'll begin the conversation thank you so much thanks Kurt so that's all the compliance we're going to talk about today uh lots of information refer back as you're applying but just know that all of these things um are something you should take into consideration as you're thinking through your projects so next up we're going to go through some step by step on how to use zoom grants and I will turn this over to Nancy bang our management assistant good morning everybody my name is Nancy Vang and I assist with the star programs both neighborhood star and cultural star and I'll be going over how to use zoom grants with you um as Aon stated earlier our applications did open last Friday on April 5th um we currently only accept online applications submitted through Zoom grants um to access the 2024 neighborhood star uh application um you can do that by going to our website and there will be a um button that says uh apply and you just click on that button it should take you right to the zoom grants website um and from there you should be able to see what programs the city has available that you can apply to and you want to select the 2024 neighborhood star program um in order to start an application you do need to uh log in um otherwise it won't save any every information so you should when you log in it should have like a bunch of like red text that says log in or sign in to fill out an application so um just keep that in mind we like to emphasize that you should um start your application early um because there can be a lot of technical issues that might come up Zoom grants can take uh typically take up to 24 hours to respond to any um tech support questions um star staff we we are unable to see your applications um before you submit them so if you have any issues we wouldn't be able to see what your screen and see what issues you're having so that's why we we highly highly strongly emphasize that you start your application early and submit early so that you don't have the issue of um the website uh getting overloaded and you're stuck with the buffering um symbol um as I stated before you're going to want to log in to submit your application and there's a bunch of ways to log in and to sign up as you can see there um you can go to the next slide so when you're starting your application uh there are different user types the first one I'm going to talk about is the applicant and that's the person who will be the main contact on the application so um each applicant should submit applications from one Zoom grants account so by applicant we mean uh your organization or your entity there should only be one account for your organization if you have already used Zoom grants before don't create a new account just use the one that you've been using um this helps us to be able to uh track all of your applications um that you've worked on in the past um if you're unable to access your Zoom grants account reach out to zoom grants um at the email that's provided there and they can help you uh with accessing your account maybe the person who created the account before is no longer there and it was um the your account was tied to that person's email Zoom grants can um work its magic to get you access to that account so that you're not having to create a new one or they could transfer um ownership to you um if you're new to using Zoom grants we recommend that you use a general email rather than your own personal work email or your personal email you know create a general work email that anybody could access so that if for some reason you're no longer with the organization someone else can um use that login information without having to create a new account um applicants can work on archive delete as well as control other users access to the application and an application can only be submitted by the applicant um collaborators and additional contacts cannot submit applications for the applicant they cannot um edit the application without the applicant giving them that kind of access collaborators are invited by the applicant to work on the application uh the applicant determines how much access a collaborator can have so they might see you can work on the application but you can't attach documents or something like that so they control how um much a collaborator can uh work on an application um collaborators cannot edit the primary applicants information and they are also unable to submit the application or archive or delete it and then additional context are just folks that you include um to receive notification on like um the status and stuff of an application they don't have access to work on an application but they'll just receive notifications through Zoom grants if we send them out um again start and submit your application early to give adequate time to avoid or address any technical issues you can log out and log back in to work on your application as many times as you need before the deadline and before you submit your application once you submit it you can't go back into your application um and if you do then just reach out to Star staff and we can reopen your application for you you um we recommend that you work on your narrative responses in a Word document and not directly into Zoom grants and that way um you are able to uh kind of not have to keep log in and log out of Zoom grants you can just copy and paste your responses but when you do that um or if you do that just remember that Zoom grants um is a little bit finicky and it doesn't allow you to have any kind of format so you can't bold or you can't italicize or have bullet points so you'll want to remove all of that if you copy and paste any of that formatting into your response you won't be able to submit your application uh your response will autosave When You tab to or click on the next question um the appearance and then disappearance of the saving screen indicates that the answer was saved and your application was updated successfully but if it continues to flash the sa the saving screen and it's not changing um from that then there's likely an issue so uh it may like you may like refresh it and then you'll find that none of your stuff was saved which is why we also recommend that you work on your um responses in a Word document so you don't lose all of that um if you do have this issue where it's not saving your work um you'll want to check your internet connection make sure you are removing all of the formatting um and if you've tried everything and it still isn't working then reach out to zoom grants again star staff can't see your application so we wouldn't be able to help you with that but Zoom grants can so if you reach out to them they can let you know that oh yeah one of your you know there's like some invisible character or something in your response and that's why it's not saving um so again start early so that if you have those issues Zoom grants can help you with that um when you submit your application every question has to have a response and all required documents must be uploaded um if you don't have uh if you don't meet these two criteria it's not going to submit so if there's a question that was accidentally left blank it's not going to tell you what question but it's going to you're going to have a message up top that says you know Uh something's missing or something's not working um and so you'll want to make sure you you double check all of your questions and your responses and all of your documents before you click the submit button click on the print preview link of your application to review your responses for completion sometimes uh when you copy and paste stuff some things might get cut off um and we do have a character limit on the responses so that um could happen so it's it's uh good to click on that print preview just to be sure that your response is complete um also verify that you've uploaded the correct files before submitting your application like Ain said said earlier if for some reason you don't have um any of the required documents um upload a note in there explaining why don't upload something that says available upon request um otherwise your application will be considered incomplete and ineligible if you need to make any updates after you've submitted your application let us know and we can reopen your application if it's before the um application period closes so once that uh window closes you cannot make any edits unless we ask you to uh make edits and this is zoom grants contact information um there are really great resource they also have a great help resource um on their website um there's like a help a help link there and it takes you to what they call Zoom grants University click on that and it teaches you all about how to use zoom grants and it's a great resource to use but um for if you need immediate assistance then they're generally really good about responding to emails um I've never needed to call them um because they're so quick at responding to emails but as it gets closer to the application close date the volume of requests might get higher so again start your applications early so that you don't have to deal with those issues um again they're good about responding within 24 hours um unless it's over the weekend then you have to wait until um the next business day thanks Nancy um and I'll just remind everyone like Nancy was saying um work on it in word or another format and those application questions are online so um you can see those in advance there are I believe 20 Questions plus some voluntary questions um so that resource is available to you and the character limit she referenced is pretty high um so we we encourage folks to be concise where possible but don't worry too much that you're going to get cut off after like 250 characters it's a pretty high character limit um so just a few additional resources then I'm going to open it up for questions um like I have said most everything can be found on our website which is stpaul.gov NSTAR um guidelines some frequently asked questions um information about our board links to sample contracts link to sample attachments um other starf funded projects that's all online so please check it out um use whatever is helpful to you hero which is kind of our Shand for our compliance team is also online at St pa.gov hero REO and here is your neighborhood star staff um you've met all of us here um and feel free to contact UM Nancy and me first we are available throughout the whole um application period for your questions or if you need um additional support and Nia and Tim are additionally uh wonderful resource sources so I will just end with some photos of recent star projects uh doughnut trap is a brick and mortar uh Bakery that's going to be opening soon the lowlands is an event center um right across the bridge from St Paul Sun Foods recently did um some updates to their location Papa legba got some facade improvements with star funds and taste of Rondo um as well so just some nice sunny pictures on a nice sunny day um to show the kind of work that we do and that's all the information that we have um but I will open this up for any questions happy to answer any questions you might have just unmute yourself and go ahead hi I noticed that you had said storefront but what if it's like a location inside of a commercial property uh that's fine I mean as long as you have uh site control you have the ability to make Capital modifications that's just fine uh what is the expected number of applicants good question so I would say um we don't necessarily know the number of applicants so much as we know that every year we probably get at least uh twice as much in requests as we are able to fund so I'm going to guess we're going to get like five million in requests this year um and whether that's 100 applications or something else I I don't necessarily know um but that's we're typically over subscribed in that there is much more need than we're able to fund um and the average award amount is I would say 50,000 or less part of that is because the match isn't required um up to 50,000 and part of that is just we have um kind of shifted the program to do a bit more um to just to spread it out more kind of keep it at that 50,000 Mark that said if you need to ask for more absolutely ask for what you need hello um I am uh calling in from theater moo and I'm wondering am I correct in assuming that um projects need to be for brand new buildings or or can the funds be used to renovate rental rental offices or something like that yeah absolutely it does not need to be for brand new buildings um it can certainly be used for renovation um I will say for rental units that is an allowable use of neighborhood star funds so long as they are not for your rental unit so we can't fund um individual homeowners but certainly we fund lots and lots of renovation projects um and and welcome that sort of application I have a question so let's say for example like fixtures that goes into the wall like storage like storage units and spaces um do you cover that I mean that's inside of a that's inside of the business yeah I would say um the shorthand is if it is permanently affixed and it's going to last for seven or more years that typically is allowable as a capital Improvement um I see a question in the chat are applicants that have previously applied given funding priority if their improvements were not selected in previous Cycles no I don't think so um I don't think that's something that the board is um taking into account when they're evaluating proposals hi my name is Ping and I have a quick question um I am representing a nonprofit organization that you know makes less than half aill ion dollar a year or has less than half a million dollars a year in less than 10 employees and so we're very new to Capital Improvement um addressing Capital Improvement needs um is there any help in identifying how to make bids like the how process of how we even procure um contractors or project managers for uh for these types of funding we need a little bit of handholding yeah no I hear you um I would say that we have some limited ability to support with things like that right so if you were awarded funds your project manager could certainly help I would say most of what they have the ability to do though and ner Tim jump in um where I'm wrong is often they would be directing you to like that CT list that we were talking about or other sort of resources um I don't know where there would be additional handholding around that sort of thing so if anyone else has the answer to that jump in please so for the C list do we just like send out a scope of work and then receive a ton of responses back or like I or like when looking at the C list I I don't know anyone U from hero or yeah I I can answer that um the the dessert list Works in a way um that you know you you put in a scope of work and you would get a list of vendors you know that their profiles say that they're able to complete that scope of work and then you would then have the opportunity to reach out to them directly uh I do not believe there's a way to reach out in Mass um you know to every business under one specific scope of work uh uh it mostly has to be done you know on a a direct basis the only other thing I might add um to that question is perhaps some of the neighborhood groups right like there are some groups um I don't I can't even think what they're called off the top of my head that help with small business um capacity and things like that I know you're a nonprofit so that might be a little bit different um but that might be a resource or even like the Council of nonprofits they might have um some places to direct you around kind of getting those projects done so some of those bigger bigger organizations that have more uh referral resources might be worth checking out um okay question in the chat oh go ahead hello can you hear me I can okay uh can the funds be used for upgrading parking lots the property on property okay that was my only question thank you yeah you're welcome um in the chat if we're looking to get funding for two separate scope of work projects would it be better to submit two applications or combine them into one application um I guess I'm not sure um which would be better I if it increases the cost of your project um to combine them then more compliance will attach um I don't think we see a lot of folks submitting two applications um so I'm not sure how how that would be evaluated necessarily um yeah I don't know I I think I would probably say combine it into one unless you know if it's at the same site um I would probably put it all in one application but Star team if that's the wrong advice feel free to jump in nope that's right um if you have if so star projects are based on Project address so if it's for the same address put it in one application but if you have separate if it's two different locations then I would do a separate application for each location um but I'm not sure if well we can discuss that privately too but um yeah for for now yes if it's for two separate locations then two applications if it's for the same location then just put it all in one I can't remember I'm sorry I have a question I can't remember if y'all answered this question or not so let's say for like um y'all need like a a itemized statement of the supplies that will be needed and also let's say for example if I apply for like 25,000 um do you go through each individual itemized thing and deny some of it or do you deny the whole application no so I would say um it is helpful for us to get a a full picture of your project you know so when you're filling out the budget section for example you'll see broad kind of categories so like commercial renovation I think in there we don't necessarily need to see like we're GNA buy four windows and we're GNA do you know that level of detail isn't necessary there um but when it comes to writing your contract you'll put together a statement of work that might be a little more specific and then yes when you start to submit for reimbursements we do need receipts for every single thing and if for some reason one of those receipts was not eligible we just wouldn't reimburse for that does that answer your question yes so do I have to um pay for it first and then get reimbursement from the um neighborhood star Grant or how does that work yes broadly yes um you can do it that way you can also get an invoice and we can pay that um so if you say hired a contractor to put up a wall and you had an invoice for that we could get the funds to you to pay that invoice we just may retain some of those funds until the project is complete and it would still just be subject to our guidelines so that's what we mean where it's either reimbursement which is giving you the money after you've paid or it's disbursement which is getting you the money to pay something with appropriate documentation okay I see some questions in the chat here oh thanks for the Propel nonprofits that is a good resource for nonprofits if you need um some additional support um questions about where to find the sort list thanks for answering that folks um and some additional links in the comments here um about additional um compliance details and I did go back just to see the stpaul.gov hero tons of information on there so um you can certainly check that out as well I got a question other questions yeah I have a question um so if you we've got a lot of work a lot of different things that we projects that I want to work on um do do I just and I I heard you say like you most likely you're going to do loans for 50k and I know that's not only but do I just um break it down to kind of would you recommend just one of part of a bigger project that might be 50,000 and then uh apply for that and then just kind of explain how it relates to the the bigger overall uh goals what would you recommend certainly you could yeah you certainly could do that um again I would say if if you know you're going to do a project that's going to cost you $250,000 right um regardless of whether the star funds are paying for all or just a part of that the compliance is going to apply no matter what so it's better for us to always know um like the full scope of a project just so that we can prepare around that going in um that said it is helpful to know like this 50 Grand of star funding is going to do these you know pieces of the project so that we can see how it fits into the whole um and yeah I would say 50,000 is not a cap right so it is likely that we're funding around that level but certainly if you need more funding ask for more funding um that's I don't want to discourage people um from asking for what they need okay thank you yeah you're welcome other questions there's some questions in the chat yeah if I'm a tenant can I apply or does the owner of the building need to apply um whoever controls the building so I'm going to assume that would be the owner um whoever can prove that they have control over that um and again we can't give funds for individual homeowners or renters right so we're not going to fund people to fix up their own house or apartment so in that case probably the uh building owner and then matching requirement for an amount of less than 50,000 that requirement is zero there is no match for under 50 um yes there will be a recording of the presentation posted on our website the slides will be posted as well so come back and watch this as many times as you want to I'm sure it's riveting are you still allowed to apply for the year round funding yep yeah so applying for regular neighborhood star does not prevent you from applying for other programs including cultural star the only thing you can't do is apply for the same project in different programs so as long as they are different that is just fine Erin I just want to backtrack a little bit on the question about if you're a tenant um can you apply tenants can apply but they have to have permission from the property owner to make any Capital Improvements um and would need um like a written statement from the property owner or something along those lines showing that you have that permission so yes attendant can apply but again it's uh it's probably in the best interest that the owner applies but but that doesn't mean um a tenant cannot apply yeah thanks Nancy I was reading that as um uh not commercial tenant so yes really good point other questions all right not hearing additional questions I'll just remind folks again um we are available email call check out the website um we want to make this as easy as possible for everyone who's applying um and just say thank you so much for attending today and we really look forward to working with you have a good afternoon enjoy the sunny day bye