Agency Fights to Keep $3 Million for Arts : Endowment: With Los Angeles facing a possible budget shortfall of $200 million, grants face a tough City Council battle.

The Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department has begun its bid to maintain city arts funding by recommending $3 million in 1992-93 grants. But with the city facing a budget shortfall of up to $200 million, City Council members say a tough fight is in store.

The grant recommendations, which are funded through the city’s Endowment for the Arts, would maintain the level of funding provided to artists and arts organizations in past years. But the recommendations, approved last week by the department’s advisory commission, must pass through lengthy budget reviews ending with mayoral and City Council approval in June. Despite planned cuts in the department’s administrative budget, one council member predicted that that wouldn’t be enough.

“I can’t imagine that we would lay off workers and not cut (grants),” Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky said. “It’s unconscionable to think that when we’re talking about cutting child-care facilities, we wouldn’t cut at least as much in the grants program.”

Cultural Affairs Department General Manager Adolfo V. Nodal has long vowed to keep the grant fund steady at $3 million. That’s even if it means cutting his department’s other programs, which include citywide festivals and a number of art centers.

“It’s going to be tough, but the city’s made a commitment to the endowment and to the arts, and the grants are the last thing we’d cut in our budget,” Nodal said.

The cultural affairs budget comes from two sources: the city’s general fund ($3.2 million in 1991-92), and the L.A. Endowment for the Arts ($5.5 million). The endowment, which is made up of outside sources such as hotel and motel bed taxes and fees on new developments, was established by the City Council in 1988. While the fund’s guidelines mandate that it be used for special programs such as the grants and public art projects, the City Council technically could reduce or rescind endowment funding.

Nodal was tight-lipped about specifics on the department’s overall proposed budget, but noted that it includes a loss of six full-time staff positions (out of a total of 87) plus a 7%-10% cut from the general fund. The department absorbed similar cuts last year, but the grants program was left intact.

Like Yaroslavsky, Councilman Nate Holden said it was important to ensure that all departments “bite the bullet equally,” but seemed to agree with Nodal that endowment funds should not be touched.

“With the shortfall expected, we may want to look closer at what we can do with (Cultural Affairs’ general fund) money, but we can’t go back and change the (endowment) ordinance. We should honor the reasons why we put it there at the time,” Holden said.

But City Councilman Michael Woo, considered one of the council’s major arts supporters, said he feared the endowment might be targeted for deep cuts.

“Last year, I overheard a council member saying that maybe we should look at the endowment as a source of money to be raided. I think that would be a real tragedy,” Woo said. “I’d like to keep the endowment out of the politics. I don’t want us to get into a crass debate about whether police officers or artists are more important--they’re both important.”

Included in the proposed grants package are 252 grants (out of 459 applicants) totaling more than $2.7 million, as well as $200,000 allotted for technical assistance to arts groups and $75,000 set aside for grant appeals. Included are recommendations for seven grants to large arts organizations with budgets of more than $1.5 million, 140 awards for smaller arts groups, 84 individual artists grants and 21 awards to non-arts organizations that have art components.