Tom Pappert, lead reporter at The Tennessee Star, reports that Nashville officials have either not created or have not produced documentation required under Tennessee law for a proposed $735,000 grant to the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), raising questions about whether the city is complying with statutory transparency requirements governing metropolitan government funding to nonprofit organizations.
The proposed $735,000 allocation to TIRRC, included in Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget, follows reporting that the Metro Nashville Clerk’s Office does not possess documentation related to the funding request.
Under Tennessee law, nonprofit organizations seeking financial assistance from a metropolitan government must submit a statement detailing the proposed use of the funds, the program’s benefit to local residents, and an annual audit to the clerk of the legislative body, where those records are required to be available for public inspection.
Metro Clerk Austin Kyle told The Star that his office has no filings from TIRRC related to the proposed FY27 appropriation and indicated such records would not be filed with the clerk until after the Metro Council approves the funding.
Speaking during Friday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Pappert said the funding proposal was initially described in O’Connell’s budget as a “contribution” before city officials began characterizing it as a grant.
“In the black and white budget that Mayor O’Connell has proposed, it is called a contribution. It is a contribution to the Tennessee Immigrant Refugee Rights Coalition for $735,000,” Pappert said. “But then when I contacted Mayor O’Connell’s office to follow up on that statement and ask some pointed questions about what it really meant they changed it. It’s no longer a contribution. Now they are referring to it as a grant.”
Pappert noted that the distinction is important because grants issued by metropolitan governments are subject to the requirements outlined by Tennessee law.
“We contacted the Nashville city clerk, a gentleman by the name of Austin Kyle, yesterday, and he told us that not only do they not have any type of report or paperwork regarding TIRRC’s purported request for $735,000 in the upcoming fiscal year, but they said that they should not have that until after it is passed by the Metro Council,” Pappert said.
According to Pappert, Kyle indicated that any existing records would likely be maintained by Metro Nashville’s Finance Department rather than the clerk’s office.
“And if anybody should have that paperwork on hand now, making it available to the public in compliance with Tennessee law, it would not be his office, which I would argue is already out of compliance, but instead it would be the Metro Finance Department’s Division of Grant Coordination,” Pappert said.
Pappert said he subsequently contacted the Nashville Finance Department seeking access to any documentation submitted by TIRRC in support of the funding request.
“I contacted this office, the Finance Department’s Division of Coordination, and I asked them, ‘Do you have the statutorily required information available to the public? When can I come to look at it, if you can’t email it to me today?'” Pappert said.
Rather than providing the records or information about how they could be inspected, Pappert said the department directed him to submit a public records request.
“They replied, essentially instructing me to fill out an open records request under the Tennessee Public Records Act,” he said.
“One way or another, I’m going to get that application,” he added. “It’s going to become public. Our readers have a right to see it.”
Based on the responses he received from both offices, Pappert said Nashville officials appear to face two possibilities.
“In other words, it seems to me the City of Nashville either has no record of this grant request coming in from TIRRC, or else they are in flagrant violation of Tennessee Code Annotated (TCA) 7-3-314(b),” Pappert said.
During Friday’s show, Pappert also addressed a separate proposal in O’Connell’s budget that would provide $718,000 to Tennessee Justice For Our Neighbors, another nonprofit organization that provides immigration-related legal services.
Pappert said he received an additional response from Kyle regarding that proposed appropriation Friday morning.
“This morning, I actually just received a response shortly before I came on the air, and the latest update from Austin Kyle, the metro clerk for the City of Nashville, is, quote, ‘We don’t have any records for that proposal at this time,'” Pappert said.
The Metro Council is scheduled to vote on O’Connell’s proposed budget on June 17.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
