Ups and downs of Los Angeles arts funding
ARTS AND CULTURE
Under proposed budgets, the city's Cultural Affairs Department spending would be trimmed, while county arts spending would rise.
Los Angeles County would increase arts and cultural spending 3.8% under a proposed $22-billion budget released this week, but the city of L.A.'s arts agency could be headed for a 6.1% cut.
Spread among the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the Music Center and the grant-issuing L.A. County Arts Commission, county arts spending will reach $68.5 million if the Board of Supervisors adopts Chief Executive William T. Fujioka's 2008-09 spending plan.
Meanwhile, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's proposal, if approved by the City Council, would cut the Cultural Affairs Department's budget from about $10.1 million to about $9.5 million -- back where it stood in 2004-05.
In the county proposal, arts funding would rise even though overall government spending would dip 2.6%. The opposite is true for Villaraigosa's $7-billion citywide budget, which hikes spending 2.8% as he tries to put more police on the streets.
While the mayor's plan eliminates five cultural affairs jobs, lowering staffing to 77, the county budget includes $360,000 for five additional security people at Walt Disney Concert Hall to monitor its hair-trigger fire alarm system. False alarms have gone off at inopportune moments, such as during violinist Itzhak Perlman's rendition of Beethoven's "Kreutzer" Sonata in 2005.
"You get all the bells and whistles in a new building -- maybe too many," said Music Center spokeswoman Catherine Babcock. "Technology has gotten so sensitive that it takes human effort to watch it."
County funding of the Music Center would rise 5.7%, to $21.4 million. LACMA would receive $23.6 million -- a 13.1% jump stemming largely from the first of three $2-million annual extra payments to help with increased operating costs due to the opening of the Broad Contemporary Art Museum and other new features.
The Natural History Museum would get $13.9 million, 6.2% less than a year ago. Museum President Jane Pisano said the cut was expected -- it balanced an increase last year beyond what was called for in the formula, based on the consumer price index, that determines the county's support for the museums and the Music Center. Although the cut would mean four fewer county-paid positions at the Natural History Museum, Pisano said the nonprofit operating foundation that shares the cost of running the museum plans to fill those vacant jobs and keep overall staffing unchanged.
