Cultural Affairs Chief Plans Major Reorganization

In anticipation of recession-fueled city budget cuts over the next several years, Los Angeles Cultural Affairs manager Adolfo P. Nodal has proposed a plan for massive restructuring of the department that he says will convert the agency into a more “service-oriented” organization, cutting costs by reducing grants, festivals, community center art classes and exhibition programs and relying more heavily on community partnerships to help run the department’s citywide arts centers.

The department also plans to establish eight “regional arts councils” to increase community “ownership” of the arts in underserved areas of the city.

And the three-year plan calls for designating one staff member to concentrate on marketing the arts--especially by tapping into the entertainment industry--as well as the designation of a department “ombudsman” to serve as a community liaison to make the department more “user-friendly.”

“Our experience over the last few years has been reduction after reduction, and we sort of decided after our last round of cuts last year that we needed to do something different,” Nodal said in an interview. “We needed to reorganize the department in a way that could stand budget cuts and still be vital.”

The new plan, which was presented to the cultural affairs commission late last week, may result in some layoffs and probable cuts to existing programs, Nodal said.

“Basically, what I want to do is develop a more comprehensive approach to the arts in this city,” Nodal said. “There is no comprehensive program, everybody is doing their own thing. I hope this marketing person can come up with a real marketing plan.”

Nodal said that a marketing executive and an ombudsman will come from reassignments of existing staff members. “There is going to be a lot of shifting of people at the department,” he said. “(For the marketing position) we really need somebody who understands our system. It can befuddle you--it befuddled me for a year before I really figured out what we are doing.”

Nodal said the plan, the result of six months of discussions with an ad hoc committee of community arts leaders, formed the basis of departmental budget documents that were submitted to Mayor Richard Riordan at the beginning of December. Changes in the department would not begin until July, he said.

The 1994-95 city budget calls for a 15% cut to the cultural affairs department’s 1992-93 budget of $9.4 million, leaving the department with $7.74 million. Nodal predicted that the downsizing will continue for the next several years. He added that the department’s revenues are also down because of lost revenues from the so-called “bed tax,” which provides the department with 1% of the city’s Transient Occupancy Tax, as well as from the Arts Development Fund, which collects fees on new commercial development over $500,000, and another tax that provides a portion of 1% of all construction improvement or renovation for public works capital improvement undertaken by L.A.

Nodal hopes the regional arts councils will be a catalyst for joint efforts between communities and the cultural affairs department, as well an ensure equitable distribution of arts dollars. The department has received a three-year, $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to develop the councils, Nodal said.

“There is traditionally an inequity in arts funding in different regions of the city, and there is very little involvement in the arts in some areas of the city,” Nodal said. “This will increase involvement in the arts, as well as provide some ownership and develop leadership in the arts.

“There are people in Pacoima and East L.A. and South-Central that have strong leadership capabilities. That can be used for the arts.”