Date/Time: Thursday, May 3 | 10:15 - 11:30AM

Speakers: Andrew Austin, Metro Parks Tacoma | Debbie Terwillieger, Metro Parks Tacoma

Category: Revenue/Customer Service

Description: Metro Parks Tacoma (MPT) recently used New Market Tax Credits to secure nearly $7 million dollars in support of a $30M community center on Tacoma’s Eastside. New Market Tax Credits are a federally-funded program designed to encourage private investment in low-income communities across the country. While this funding was critical to MPT’s ability to leverage bond and grant dollars to construct this much-needed center, it was the most complicated “free” construction money anyone at MPT can remember. This session will focus on what New Market Tax Credits are, how MPT used them to fund the project and help you evaluate if they might be a good fit for your future project. The goal of this session will be to share an unfiltered experience so you can learn from MPT’s challenges and successes and highlight how they might work, or not, in your community.

Learning Objective:

• Learn and understand what New Market Tax Credits are and how to use them. 
  
  
• Learn how Metro Parks Tacoma used this complicated funding source.
  
  
• Apply this knowledge to evaluate if this is a funding source to pursue in your community in the future.

Speakers: Andrew Austin is the government affairs manager at Metro Parks Tacoma. Previously he worked for a decade in public transit advocacy. He’s also managed numerous political campaigns and worked as an aide in the Washington State Legislature. When he's not finding money for Tacoma's amazing parks you'll likely find him exploring the world on a bus or on his bike.

Debbie is the Planning Director at Metro Parks since 2015 and is responsible for the long-range planning and capital development of park projects supported through bond financing, grant, and partnerships. Debbie is a licensed landscape architect with over 20 years of experience in parks, natural resources management, planning, funding, and policy work. Her specialty is in stakeholder participation and collaborative decision-making.