{"id":5841,"date":"2009-04-29T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-29T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/a-modest-proposal-part-2\/"},"modified":"2009-04-29T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-29T11:00:00","slug":"a-modest-proposal-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/a-modest-proposal-part-2","title":{"rendered":"A Modest Proposal: Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It does not, and should not, take seven employees to manage $540,000 of municipal funds.  <\/span>I do not believe that’s an oversimplification.  <\/span>It is really that simple. <\/span><\/p>\n

Other Cities are far more efficient in managing overhead.   <\/span>For example, Santa Monica<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> uses a model that has an Arts Commission<\/a> with 13 members, each appointed by members of the City Council.  <\/span>These commissioners are all volunteers, and do most of the work.  <\/span>There’s a 501c3 (non-profit) corporation, with a board made of the Arts Commission members, and no staff.  <\/span>It exists primarily to receive grants.  <\/span>There is a small municipal Cultural Affairs division with a full time staff of 4.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Santa Monica<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, with a population of nearly 89,000, managed to commit $1,492,275<\/a> in direct arts funding for the coming fiscal year.  <\/span>That’s an investment of nearly $17 per person.  <\/span>In the last four years, their spending has nearly doubled.  <\/span>Clearly, residents and leaders alike have recognized a significant value in investing in the arts, and found ways to fund it. <\/span><\/p>\n

Under the leadership of the Arts Council for Long Beach<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, arts funding has plummeted from $1.2 million to $540,000, with deeper cuts expected in the next municipal budget.  <\/span>At current funding levels, that’s a per capita commitment of about 91 cents.  <\/span><\/p>\n

Despite tons of data that clearly demonstrate the practical value of investing in arts and culture, they’ve failed to convince municipal leaders that a stronger commitment to arts funding makes sense.  <\/span>Clearly, advocacy is not one of their strong suits.  <\/span><\/p>\n

It may be that municipal leaders might be more willing to commit more funds if they were spent more wisely.  <\/span>It should be pointed out that, right now, $300,000 of the funding is earmarked for operational overhead, with $240,000 earmarked for grants. <\/span> <\/p>\n

There is a model that could direct a larger percentage, or nearly all, of those funds to grants.  <\/span>With our newly formed Business Development and Cultural Affairs Bureau, I could imagine a model where, like Santa Monica<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, a small working Commission of volunteers decides how to allocate funds, and an existing staff person writes the checks.  <\/span>The existing 501c3 could remain to receive grants, but have no staff of its own.  <\/span>All of a sudden, nearly all the funds are now flowing into the community. <\/span><\/p>\n

That’s just one idea to put more dollars into the hands of the creative community without increasing spending. <\/span><\/p>\n

In Part 3, I’ll talk about three ways our elected municipal leaders can significantly support arts and culture without spending a single penny.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hi-lo","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5841"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5841"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}