CAC’s Kozberg Pushes for Changes in Funding : Arts: A study launched by the council’s new director will lead to a radical shake-up in the way the state agency will distribute money to arts organizations.

OSP. The acronym stands for the Organization Support Program, a study group formed by the California Arts Council, the state agency which awards more than $15 million in grants annually to artists and arts organizations. Both Organization Support Program and study group are suspicious labels--the kind that conjure up images of lots of paper changing hands and changing offices over an extended period of time, at great expense to the state and with no particular effect.

That doesn’t seem to be the case with OSP--except the part about lots of paper. This particular study was conducted by an all-volunteer panel of arts representatives from throughout the state (they even paid their own travel expenses). It all happened in four recent meetings over the relatively brief period of March through August.

And its results will lead to a radical shake-up in the way the California Arts Council will distribute money to arts organizations.

The person responsible for launching the program is Joanne Kozberg, 47, former co-chair of the arts council and, as of mid-September, its new executive director. The program recommendations will lead to a more equitable distribution of funds among large and small arts organizations, as well as setting aside 2% of the council’s budget for multicultural groups. The council has yet to decide whether to establish a minimum grant of $2,000 or $5,000--up from the current floor amount of $1,000. The higher amount would lead to further budget cuts for larger and mid-size organizations.

The redistribution of funds comes just as all arts organizations are tightening belts against the recession. The Los Angeles Music Center, for example, announced last week that it will provide 15% less support to its resident performing arts companies next year than it had expected. Kozberg will address the effects of the economy on the arts during the California Confederation of the Arts’ 1991 Congress of the Arts, beginning today at the Bristol Court Hotel in San Diego.

While representatives of California arts organizations have mixed reactions to the changes at the state arts council--largely depending on how much money they stand to gain or lose in the deal--they expect to see Kozberg continue to push for changes in the way the agency will allot its $15.8 million in state funds.

“You have 30 million people in California--we have one-tenth of the nation’s population,” said Kozberg during a recent interview. “We’ve somehow got to divide this very small pot of money and meet the needs of the state, which are diverse. California is changing, and what we find is we are now having to deliver increased services to an increasing population--which is increasingly diverse--with diminished funds.”

Kozberg has been a member of the council since 1986. She served as chair in 1989 and held the position of co-chair when she was appointed director by Gov. Pete Wilson on Aug. 26. She is a Beverly Hills Republican who was a long-time board member of the Music Center of Los Angeles County and served from 1984-88 as then-Sen. Wilson’s senior policy adviser on the arts, entertainment industry and transportation. Kozberg left the Music Center board when she assumed the $79,956-per-year arts council post.

Along with her support of the new funding structure, Kozberg also pledges greater concern for Central California and the state’s rural areas and a deeper commitment to community-oriented and public art. She adds that California needs to develop a greater connection between the tourist industry and the arts, emphasizing that the state’s museums and performing arts groups need to become tourist attractions like Universal Studios and Disneyland.

Kozberg also speaks of a need to figure out new ways to address the needs of media organizations, including public broadcasting stations, which have joined the clamor for funds from the council as their other sources dry up. “The media is the 21st-Century art form,” said Kozberg, who added that she intends to build greater ties between Hollywood and the arts community.

Among the governor’s new appointments to the council are James Loper, executive director of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and novelist-screenwriter Iris Dart (“Beaches”).

David Lizarraga, president of the East Los Angeles Community Union and another of the newly-appointed council members, met Kozberg for the first time at his first council meeting in mid-September. “I was really pleased to see that she has, I think, a tremendous insight into where the council should go in the future . . . where the need really lies,” Lizarraga said.

“I really saw a sensitivity to the needs of multicultural organizations . . . for me it was significant, because I believe that it’s important to reach out to different arts groups that can maximize a small amount of dollars in such a way that they preserve programs that are reaching into the communities.”

Last year’s California Arts Council budget was $16.9 million. Like all other state agencies, the council experienced a 4% budget cut for 1991-92 and may experience a further cut of up to $400,000. The 4% cut has already resulted in the elimination of two administrative positions--director of the council’s Traditional Folk Arts Program and the agency’s communication officer--and Kozberg says 14 other positions may be phased out.

With other budget cuts looming, some large arts organizations, which will be among the hardest hit by the financial restructuring of the council, expressed fears about the changes.

One of those is the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which could see its council funding drop from $300,000 to $200,000, said Leni Isaacs Boorstin, public affairs manager for the orchestra, which has an annual operating budget of $33 million.

“That’s one-third of the Philharmonic’s (grant) gone in the blink of an eye,” Boorstin said. While acknowledging the increasing needs of smaller organizations, Boorstin added: “The main problem is that the council does not have the funds to accomplish all of (its) public policy goals. . . . From the Philharmonic’s point of view, the expectations are very high about what we should be accomplishing, and we all take our responsibility very seriously. To have reduced funding at a time when we also have a deficit stops our forward motion.”

Kozberg sees things differently. “All arts organizations are fragile, and it’s an unhappy situation--but that is the reality. We don’t want to hurt any organization, but we have to look at the common good,” she said.

Even with their fears, representatives of arts organizations of all sizes applaud Kozberg’s appointment. They are particularly hopeful that her long-term ties to Wilson will help maintain the state’s commitment to the arts. Some Los Angeles-based artists hope that Kozberg--who will maintain a residence in Beverly Hills along with a home in Sacramento--will strengthen the council’s commitment to Southern California, which has traditionally received less funding than the San Francisco Bay Area.

“I have known Ms. Kozberg for quite awhile--she is a very intelligent woman, and very caring,” said Darlene Neel, company manager for L.A.’s Bella Lewitzky Dance Company. “The fact that she’s from Los Angeles is exciting--she’s familiar with our problems here. She also has demonstrated in her leadership of OSP her desire to embrace big and little.”