HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes_ARTAB_01.06.2010 SpecialMinutes of Meeting of the
Arts and Culture Board
City of Georgetown, Texas
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Present: Charles Aguillon, Melanie Dunham, Penny Plueckhahn, Steve Proesel, Georgene Richaud,
Mandy Solin
Absent: Jane Paden
Staff Present. Eric Lashley, Library Director; Judy Fabry, Library Administrative Assistant
Special Called Meeting:
A. Chair Charles Aguillon called the meeting to order at 3:00 p.m.
B. There were no announcements regarding upcoming events
C. There were no citizens wishing to address the Board.
D. Consideration and approval of minutes of last meeting
Georgene moved to accept the minutes as distributed, Melanie seconded the motion; it passed
unanimously.
E. Considerationof and possible action on
1. Sponsorship grant applications received by 5:00 p.m., December 11, 2009. Charles
prefaced the discussion by thanking Judy for the work she'd done to summarize the grant
applications expressing his hope that all qualified applications would receive some award
this time Since the amount that the applicants had asked for exceeded the amount of money
the Board had to allocate he suggested that an equal across-the-board deduction be made to
all applications. He also suggested that if the Board did not agree with that idea, another
option would be to provide small one-time awards from the Board's budget for support for
community public art Finally, he recommended that all applicants be given feedback about
the strengths and weaknesses of their applications.
The Board received applications from the following organizations:
The Palace Theater — requested $20,000 (21% of budget)
Wilhamson Museum — requested $5,000 (16% of budget)
Georgetown Art Works — requested $2,044 (36% of budget)
Friends of Georgetown Symphony Society (FOGSS) — requested $10,000 (100% of budget)
Georgetown Symphony Society (GSS) — requested $17,231 (25% of budget)
Georgetown Festival of the Arts (GOFA) — requested $28,000 (25% of budget)
Hill Country Book Festival — requested $1,500 (% of budget not clear)
Penny began the discussion by stating that many of the answers to questions were redundant
and that the Board should consider revising the questions. Georgene pointed out that the
redundancy gave applicants who provided an irrelevant answer in one question a chance in
another question to provide relevant information —that is, some people misunderstood what
information the Board was looking for in certain questions, but were able to respond
appropriately when the questions were phrased differently.
Georgene asked whether the Board members believed all of the applicants met the eligibility
qualifications. She also asked what others thought should be done about the applicants who
requested more than 25% of their budgets (Art Works, FOGSS, and the Book Festival). A
discussion followed inwhich the interrelationships among the GSS, FOGSS, and GOFA were
examined. The members decided that the fiscal independence of the three organizations was
more important than the fact that they shared, now or at one time, the same IRS nonprofit
designation. The members agreed that the eligibility requirements may need to be revised to
reflect this distinction.
The consensus was that the Hill Country Book Festival did not meet the eligibility
requirement of having "a history of continuous, stable programming for a minimum of two
years prior to the application due date." The members agreed to remove the Book Festival's
request for funding from consideration.
Board members agreed that the requests of FOGSS and Art Works should be reduced to 25%
of their budgets, making them $2,500 and $1,425 respectively.
As the Board members considered the budgets of the applicants, they noted that some had
put values on in -kind donations and others hadn't. Assigning values to in -kind services is
difficult in many cases and could lead to inflated budgets The consensus was that future
applications should not include in -kind donations as a part of their budgets.
Reducing the requests in question to 25% of budget and eliminating the request of the Book
Festival made the total amount of requests $74,156, which was $11,156 more than the Board
budgeted for sponsorship grants. Discussion followed about how to divide the funding in an.
equitable way. Opposition existed to across-the-board percentage reductions because it
would seem to encourage future applicants to request inflated amounts, assuming their
request would be cut by some percentage. Others suggested that the shortfall should be
divided among the largest requestors, with the organizations that had asked for small
amounts receiving their full request.
The Board members finally agreed that across-the-board percentage reductions were the only
fair way to allocate this year, but agreed that in coming years, applications would be
scrutinized much more thoroughly and that failure to submit a complete application would
result in disqualification. The Board saw this round of grant -making as a learning experience
for themselves and the members hoped that the applicants also learned about the standards
to which they will be held if they apply in subsequent years.
Georgene moved that all requests be funded at 90% of the amount for which they qualified at
25% of their budgets, or 90% of the amount they requested, in the cases of those organizations
that requested less than 25% of their budget. Steve seconded the motion, which passed
unanimously. This motion created a shortfall or $3741 in the grants budget.
Steve moved to take the $3741 shortfall in the grants budget from the Board's budget for
community public art, so that all requests may be funded at 90%. Georgene seconded the
motion, which passed unanimously.
Steve moved that a denial letter be sent immediately to the Hill Country Book Festival and
that other organizations would be sent award letters after Council approves the
appropriations. Penny seconded the motion, which passed unanimously.
The Board will take their recommendations to Council on January 26, 2010.
The meeting adjourned at 4:55 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
eorgene Richaud, Secretary
Charles Aguillon, Chair