Grants by ’84 Olympics Foundation Dwindle : Athletics: The organization has more money now than it did at the conclusion of the Games. Officials say they are emphasizing the group’s own sports programs.

With the 10th anniversary of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics at hand, the foundation that the organizing committee left behind to benefit youth sports in Southern California has $11 million more in assets than its original share of the Olympic surplus.

The $106.8 million currently reported by the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles compares to the $95.4 million it received as its one-third share of the profits from the ’84 Games. Under the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee’s contract with the International Olympic Committee, the rest of the profits went to the U.S. Olympic Committee and U.S. sports federations.

The figures demonstrate how conservatively the foundation has been spending its money. Recently, it has been barely satisfying federal requirements that it spend at least 5% of its assets each year in order to maintain its tax-exempt status.

The trend of the foundation’s grants to outside entities has been unevenly downward in the last few years--from more than $5 million in its first year, 1985, $4.2 million in 1986 and $3.4 million in 1987, to much less in the past three years--$1.5 million in 1992, $1.6 million in 1993 and $1.2 million in the first half of 1994.

According to foundation President Anita L. DeFrantz, the trend reflects lessons the group has learned about spending its money efficiently and also illustrates the foundation’s desire to make a greater investment in its own sports programs, conferences, and administration of a sports center and library built on its property at 2141 W. Adams Blvd.

The foundation recently turned down a Los Angeles County request that it give $250,000 for the county’s pools to avoid the imposition of a $1-per-child and $2-per-adult daily fee for swimming. The decision was made after nearly two months of consideration by the foundation’s staff and board of directors.

The county instituted the fees this summer in response to a budget shortfall. The move was met by protests that low-income families were being denied access to the pools. After being turned down by the Olympic foundation, the county--led by the chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors, Yvonne Brathwaite Burke--successfully solicited private contributions from other sources to pay the fees at some of the pools. At other pools, the fees remain in effect.

The foundation’s refusal to aid the county came in a letter from the group’s director of grants and programs, Keith J. Cruickshank, who explained, “Unfortunately, we are unable to be of assistance at this time because of our board’s specific interest in supporting sports programs that integrate the components of teaching, learning and competition.”

A leading board member, John C. Argue, explained the decision more bluntly: “If the AAF starts giving money to replace government programs, it would be throwing it down a rat hole.”

The disappointed director of the county’s Parks and Recreation Department, Rod Cooper, said the foundation’s decision “left a void” and noted a substantial decline in the foundation’s grants in the past five years to support equipment, coaching and lessons at the county’s pools.

Lou Negrete, a senior leader with the United Neighborhoods Organizations and the director of an abortive Olympic Legacy Campaign in 1985, which sought a major commitment by the foundation to youth programs in South-Central and East Los Angeles, said the foundation has a “social contract” requiring more assistance to economically deprived areas.

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“The foundation has done a very good job funding traditional sports-for-youth programs, such as boys and girls clubs and athletic leagues and competitions,” Negrete said. “But they’ve not been very effective . . . in reaching youth who are unattached to traditional sports programs. A lot of kids get left out in low-income areas.”

The pool fees added to factors that push children out of public parks, Negrete said. “Kids want desperately to go swimming and can’t afford it under the new fee system.” Meanwhile, he said, “the parks are slowly become dead parks, because of the threat of violence from the youth gangs.”

Negrete questioned a decision made three years ago by the foundation’s board to keep the institution going indefinitely rather than spend its money faster and go out of business by the year 2004. “Now, they’re becoming a traditional bureaucracy, spending money a little at a time,” Negrete said. “That means they are looking at their own self-interest. Maybe it’s time for the community to re-examine the foundation.”

Foundation leaders say the decision to keep the foundation going in perpetuity will in the long run mean much more money for youths because of the income generated by investments.

The foundation learned its lesson in 1985 about giving money directly to government, DeFrantz said, when it committed $2 million to expand operating hours and staffing at 328 summer recreation sites in 17 Southland cities where Olympic events were held in 1984.

“After reviewing how that worked, we found it wasn’t truly serving kids. The kids weren’t there, and weren’t getting instruction. . . . Simply opening the gates of recreation centers does not make a program,” she said.

DeFrantz said a dozen youth sports clubs that the foundation has sponsored at a cost of $550,000 a year, some of them in public housing projects, are a more useful and appropriate expenditure of funds. The sports clubs, aided by parental and volunteer direction, oversee competitive activities in several sports on a seasonal basis.

Besides, she added, foundation officials have concluded that county officials “have created a panic every year” as they seek general grants from the foundation to support county recreation programs. “We hear every year there’s not enough money to open the pools, but then later we hear they have found the means to do so,” she said.

The chairman of the board of the foundation, television producer David Wolper, noted that the foundation has made hundreds of grants, totaling more than $28 million, over 10 years.

“I can’t cry for the county and city government and their money problems,” Wolper said. “If they want to raise money, that’s their business, not our business. We’re not in the business of giving the city, the county and the state money. We did give some in the past, but we don’t have to do it all the time.” Yet, he lamented, “If we don’t, we’re painted as a villain.”

Wolper said the foundation has frequently made grants to blind athletes, wheelchair athletes, sports clubs and coaching clinics.

“There’s a critical need for every one of our programs,” he said. “And we always get called for it when we don’t give to someone.”

Wolper noted that while the foundation’s portfolio is larger than when it was formed, the amount is far less when inflation is taken into account.

The Los Angeles Olympics, which began 10 years ago Thursday, made a much-greater-than-expected profit. The foundation, established to disseminate to Southern California youth a share of that profit, adopted a mandate “to establish as well as revitalize sports programs for youngsters so they would have the opportunity to participate, learn and compete.”

Through March 31, 1994, foundation officials reported spending a total of $57.3 million, with grants accounting for 49%, sports programs 18%, its Ziffern Sports resource center 16%, administration 11%, and facilities 6%. Despite these expenditures, the foundation earned enough on its investments to have a portfolio of $102.8 million and it valued its property at $4 million.