The National Endowment for the Arts has reiterated its stand that the local arts council is ineligible for funding the from the national body up through 2018, apparently because, among other things, the council submitted its grant application using the wrong form, and because of ongoing concerns with the council\u2019s management, according to a NEA a letter to the Gov. Ralph DLG Torres last month.<\/p>\n
The May 11 letter, copies of which we obtained by Saipan Tribune this week, responds to a March 2016 letter from Torres where the governor expressed commitment that that he and the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs new secretary, Robert Hunter, would be seeking qualified management to run the arts agency, or the Commonwealth Council for Arts and Culture.<\/p>\n
The May 11 letter also appears to signal Torres\u2019 desire that a new executive director for the council be found.<\/p>\n
However, while NEA says they appreciate the steps Torres\u2019 office has taken in recent months, their decision on the eligibility of CCAC to apply for funding still stands.<\/p>\n
\u201cCCAC is ineligible through Jan. 22, 2018,\u201d said Winona H. Varnon, deputy chairman for management and budget and audit follow-up official, in the two-page letter to Torres.<\/p>\n
Varnon explains they had received a \u201cfinal descriptive report\u201d on grant activities for its \u201cpartnership agreement grant,\u201d but that the form that was completed was for not partnership agreements.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was for NEA grants issued to nonprofit organizations for their art projects,\u201d Varnon said, providing a correct link the form.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look forward to receiving the correct final report to meet the requirement outlined in item 2 in our Jan. 22 2015 letter to Secretary Ogumoro (Laura Ogumoro, former DCCA secretary), and reiterated in our March 10, 2016 letter to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
About $3M lost<\/strong><\/p>\n This is the second time CCAC\u2019s NEA funds have been lost.<\/p>\n The first time, in 2007, ended up seeing the CCAC ineligible for seven years.<\/p>\n Hunter told Saipan Tribune that the amount of direct funding lost over the course of the two periods of ineligibility\u2014the first seven years and the second three years\u2014and the year of eligibility in between that saw the benefit of only a portion of the grant funding\u2014may total upwards of $3 million.<\/p>\n \u201cThe total dollar loss is likely greater than that when taking into consideration the loss of the promotional benefits of activities, and peripheral income generated through car and room rentals and sales by visitors and participants who travel here to attend certain events,\u201d Hunter said in an email. <\/p>\n \u201cEqually important is the loss of cultural, preservation and educational opportunities, and the direct loss of income to artists,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Need for new management<\/strong><\/p>\n The NEA, in the May 11 letter, signaled its expectation that new management be found for the art agency, which Hunter separately confirmed as concern cited by the NEA and its inspector general, in his email.<\/p>\n In the letter, Varnon quotes Torres\u2019s March 28 letter, where the governor wrote: \u201cwe will impress upon the [CCAC] board the necessity of providing a new executive director with the necessary flexibility to asses current staffing and to employ where necessary, qualified and experienced individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUpon resentment of CCAC,\u201d Varnon went on to say, \u201cwe expect to receive specific information concerning the new management structure at CCAC including staff names, titles, and responsibilities.\u201d The current executive director for CCAC is Angel Hocog.<\/p>\n \u201cNot having seen the May 11 correspondence yet, and wanting to avoid discussing specific personnel issues,\u201d Hunter said, \u201cI can say in general terms, that we are working to meet all of the requirements that have been set forth by the NEA and its Inspector General, which includes the submission of complete reports and will address the management issues.\u201d CCAC falls under the Department of Community and Cultural Affairs.<\/p>\n Hunter disclosed they had received another letter, from the NEA Inspector General, where the IG asked, among others, that they provide names of new management \u201cif they are in place, or when they are in place.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, the NEA and especially their Inspector General, are not confident that federal funds will be properly managed by the Commonwealth Council for Arts and Culture (CCAC),\u201d Hunter said. \u201cA finding was made by the Inspector General, which was concurred by NEA officials, that the CCAC be ineligible to receive grants from the NEA through January 2018,\u201d Hunter said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The National Endowment for the Arts has reiterated its stand that the local arts council…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[54,3845,6652,11461],"class_list":["post-229651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-agency","tag-ccac","tag-inspector-general","tag-nea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}