Cultural Affairs Urges $2.7 Million in Grants : Arts: But the Los Angeles budget crisis threatens the commission’s ‘93-94 recommendations.

The Cultural Affairs Commission on Thursday recommended more than $2.7 million in grants for 1993-94, but their fate rests with the city’s looming budget crisis.

The recommendations must go through budget deliberations including approval by the City Council in April. Although grant recommendations have been rubber-stamped in previous years, the Cultural Affairs Department fears having its funding slashed next year because of a city deficit that may approach $500 million.

“We need to preface these recommendations with a giant caveat,” department general manager Adolfo V. Nodal told the commission. “We don’t know that the funding is going to be there . . . because of the deficit and the funding problem that the city has. The whole endowment may be cut, or it may be cut by a percentage.”

A total of 406 groups and individuals (requesting $6.9 million) applied for the annual grants, which were first reviewed by peer panels in each discipline before being sent to the commission.

The recommendations come shortly after a warning from Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of an ad hoc committee on the budget crisis, that a possible $500- million deficit would require all city departments to cut 24% from their budgets.

The L.A. Endowment for the Arts, expected to total $5.2 million next year, is comprised largely of funds equivalent to 1% of the city’s hotel and motel bed taxes. It was enacted in 1988 through a City Council-approved ordinance, and a change of the ordinance would be required before funds could be cut or used for other purposes.

The 213 grants recommended Thursday included $1,237,812 for small and mid-size arts organizations, $152,776 to social service organizations and $667,071 to individual artists.

The recommendations include first-year grants to three large organizations--the Museum of Contemporary Art ($65,000), the County Museum of Art ($30,000) and KCET-TV ($64,000)--as part of a program in which funding levels for those groups are held constant for three years. Organizations in the second year of the program include the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra ($108,000).

Among the other recommendations are $60,000 to the L.A. Master Chorale and $40,000 for the Craft and Folk Art Museum’s International Festival of Masks. Also: $35,000 each for Bilingual Foundation for the Arts, Lewitzky Dance Company, Cornerstone Theater and Southern California Asian-American Studies Central; and $30,000 each for the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s College, High Performance magazine and the L.A. Chamber Orchestra.

In the individual artist category, the largest recommendations are for poet Merline Murphy, musician Bobby Rodriguez, public art historian Michael Several and multi-disciplinary artist Frances Williams ($15,000 each); performance artist Dan Kwong ($14,960); photographer Carol Nye ($14,454); pianist Lori Alexander ($14,000), and visual artists Wayne Healy and Steven Glassman ($13,000 each).

Other recommended grantees include choreographer Sarah Elgart ($10,000), theater artist Jude Narita ($11,500), musician Bobby Matos ($8,000), performance artists Zoot ($9,850), and Rachel Rosenthal, Linda Sibio and Elia Arce ($9,000 each); and visual artists Gina Lamb ($10,000) and Wei Tian ($8,000).