L.A. City Council adopts policy to limit fee waivers for parades, festivals, special events

Culture Monster thinks this photo makes the annual L.A. Greek Festival seem like a lot of fun.

But the cash-strapped city of Los Angeles is finding it less than fun that, for many such festivals, parades, fairs and special events, it has been picking up the tab for the services needed to make such events happen.

In recent years, the city has made a practice of providing many nonprofits with a fee waiver to cover 100% of the cost of police, traffic cops, firefighters, street custodians and street inspectors for their events. But Lynne Ozawa, assistant chief legislative analyst for the city of Los Angeles, says those annual costs were getting out of control.  "It's at least $5 million," she says, adding that overtime costs for safety and custodial services probably boost the costs far higher.

So, earlier this week, the City Council adopted a policy that would cut those costs in half: Nonprofits may now obtain a fee waiver for only 50% of such costs and can apply for waivers for only two events per year. Before now, nobody was really keeping track of how many events each organization was putting in for, Ozawa says.

The new annual budget for fee waivers, Ozawa says, is $2.5 million. Of that, $1 million is designated for citywide events, and $1.5 million is to be divvied up among the individual council districts. She says the budget will be adopted within 60 days and begins with the 2008-2009 fiscal year already underway. (UPDATE: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the new annual budget for fee waivers was $2,500.)

It's not necessarily a function of the cut but probably of the economy: Will Caperton y Montoya, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, says there will be about 30 fewer festivals listed in Cultural Affairs' annual Festival Guide for 2009 than there were in 2008. The guide, however, also lists many Southern California festivals that are not held in L.A. or funded by the city.

Ozawa says it is impossible to predict exactly how the 50% waiver cap will affect the recently announced Ring Festival L.A., a 10-week event planned for the spring of 2010 that will involve more than 50 Southern California arts and educational institutions, inspired by Los Angeles Opera's upcoming production of Richard Wagner's epic "Ring" cycle.

-- Diane Haithman

Photo: Dancers at the 2004 L.A. Greek Festival. Credit: George Themelis

Comments

[Joe of Hollywood]

How about the City of LA start charging the private entities to get permission to close sections of public streets, i.e. Hollywood Blvd?

[Danielle Brazell]

Unfortunately the city council neglected to take into consideration the amount of revue these nonprofit festivals generate. From the hiring of independent producers to the food vendors to the number of hot-dogs sold - it all adds up and generates a lot of local revenue.

Of course arts and culture should exist for their own intrinsic value. But in these tough economic times, we need to remember that arts and cultural experiences are not only good for our soul, they are good for the economy.

[Donald Frazell]

If people really want it, they wil pay for it. Thgese are extraordinary times, and if people want to have these events, great, we need them. But the people cant get a free ride anymore, nothing wrong with that. The City wil still pick up half the tab, whats wrong with that? The planning committees wil just have to spend some more time financing and planning. Just what is necessary adn what is not. The government is not ther to pay for everything, we have to take responsibility for our events.

but I do hope they do not curtail too much, these are far better for the City and its people than the local art scene, which is just a few, and have entitlement issues. I am in Long Beach and we have many of the same issues, with at least as diverse a population, with Samoan, Philipino, and Cambodia festivals as well as the more traditional SoCal, latino and Chines and European. Security adn clean up cost alot, we all need to do our part, and gt the people to help as we go along, jsut instruct all what is going on, I tink many wil be glad to help if planned ahead of time. Its all OUR money anyway, let us what little there is wisely. And conservatively.