PANEL BACKS REVISED BID FOR STATE ARTS GRANT

A National Endowment for the Arts advisory panel on state programs has recommended approval of California’s revised application for its basic state grant, although there are some indications that federal officials still are not fully satisfied with the state arts council’s performance.

The recommendation, which would bring nearly $900,000 in federal money into state arts programs, now must go before the National Council on the Arts, the presidential advisory group. The National Council meets in August. Although on other matters the national council has acted independently, final approval on NEA’s state recommendations is considered automatic.

Anthony B. Turney, deputy chairman for public partnership and director of state programs, cautioned that approval of the California grant is for one year only. Normally states have two to three years before they go through the formal review process again. “Once a state gets into problems with this (state partnership) panel,” Turney said, “the panel is reluctant to give long-term approval until they are assured that the concerns they raised are being dealt with.”

Initial approval means that federal funds allocated in addition to the basic state grant, such as the artists-in-residence program, can be released soon. For fiscal 1985-86, beginning July 1, California will receive $258,000 for such programs as its artists-in-residence program, which brings working artists into the public schools. The state’s basic grant of $640,300 cannot be released until the National Council on the Arts gives formal approval.

Four months ago, the NEA denied the California Arts Council grant proposal, for the first time in the council’s near-decade of existence.

Turney, noting “substantive panel concerns,” rejected California’s application in a letter to council director Marilyn Ryan. California’s application, he wrote, “lacked vision and a clear sense of direction.”

Specific criticisms were directed against the state’s ethnic programming, communications with artists and arts organizations and lack of affiliation with other arts councils in the West. On May 24, five days before the NEA state programs panel met, the California Arts Council adopted its first comprehensive ethnic minority arts program, which, because of limited state funding, will be primarily concentrated in Los Angeles County. To win acceptance of its revised proposal, the state arts council, working on a tight deadline, hired an NEA-paid consultant, James Backas, chairman of Washington’s art council to help prepare the revised application.

Turney declined to comment when asked his evaluation of the revisions. “The panel did make some comments about the applications,” he said. He refused to elaborate, saying that the arts council would hear from the NEA within two weeks.

Asked whether those comments were favorable, he repeated: “I don’t think I want to comment.”

Asked whether there were problems, he said: “We have to understand the California council had a very short time in which to be responsive and we had to recognize that.”

The national endowment, whose initial rejections are in themselves rare, has never denied any state its basic grant. Without approval of the basic grant other related federal funds cannot be distributed.

Last year, the NEA deferred applications from Florida, New Hampshire, American Samoa and the Virgin Islands; ultimately, all received the federal monies due them.

Meanwhile, Turney indicated that California will face additional pressures with its fiscal 1986-87 application, which is due the first week of November. “They only now have a few more months,” he explained.

Next time, the arts council will not even have the benefit of a special NEA-paid consultant.