QUESTION
What are the costs covered by the capital program budget versus the expense budget?
2:47:30
·
130 sec
The commissioner explains that capital construction projects are separate from operational expenses.
- Capital project budgets do not cover staff salaries, utilities, maintenance, or other recurring costs
- The department provides program-based funding for exhibitions, community outreach, after-school programs, etc.
- There is a separate utility relief fund to subsidize utility costs for non-cultural groups on city property
- Expanding the utility relief fund could help increase support for cultural initiatives
Justin Brannan
2:47:30
Can you talk about what the expense budget implications are of the capital program?
2:47:34
Does the expense budget capture all the costs for staff and maintenance and energy and lease and fuel a cost that are associated with the capital projects?
Laurie Cumbo
2:47:44
So for our capital projects, our capital projects are separate and apart.
2:47:49
So when we do a capital construction project, it does not pay for staff.
2:47:53
A capital project doesn't pay for utilities, lights, gas.
2:47:56
All of those things.
2:47:57
Those are many of the major expenses that an organization has to really think about and consider when taking on a larger project.
2:48:05
We all want a brand new state of the art, multimillion dollar institution, but a lot of expenses come with that.
2:48:12
Our CDF process is programmatically based.
2:48:16
So we provide support and funding for exhibitions.
2:48:21
After school programs, we provide support for projects that organizations wanna do in terms of community outreach, a dance performance, a recital, a theater group, but we wouldn't take on the expense of utility, gas light, or resources for an organization that has undergone the process of a capital expansion project per se.
2:48:43
So they are very much separate entities.
2:48:47
We support programmatic as well as capital, but they are not intuitively combined.
2:48:54
What we do have, which is another way that we can expand our city council and artistic budget.
2:49:01
When I was in the council, I was able to create something called utility relief.
2:49:05
Utility or the utility relief fund is something that for organizations that are not cultural institution groups, but they are on city owned property.
2:49:15
We were able to create a subsidy that would allow the city to cover the cost for those utilities on city owned property that were not cultural institution groups.
2:49:26
So that program and project can always be expanded and we could always utilize greater resources to support more of that utility relief effort.
2:49:35
And that's another way we could expand the cultural budget and get us closer to that 1%.
