{"id":115,"date":"2011-12-14T14:50:33","date_gmt":"2011-12-14T22:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.culturalequitymatters.org\/?p=115"},"modified":"2011-12-15T15:37:11","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T23:37:11","slug":"cultural-equity-and-the-san-francisco-arts-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.culturalequitymatters.org\/?p=115","title":{"rendered":"Cultural equity and the San Francisco Arts Commission"},"content":{"rendered":"

reposted with permission from\u00a0Createquity.com:\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/createquity.com\/2011\/12\/cultural-equity-and-the-san-francisco-arts-commission.html<\/wbr><\/wbr><\/wbr><\/a><\/h1>\n

By\u00a0IAN DAVID MOSS<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Published:\u00a0DECEMBER 12TH, 2011<\/abbr><\/h1>\n
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It\u2019s not too often that we get genuinely tabloid-worthy headlines in arts policy, but if trainwrecks are your thing, you\u2019ll be hard-pressed to do better (worse?) than the mess that is the San Francisco Arts Commission these days. Let\u2019s start with the\u00a0San Francisco\u00a0Chronicle\u00a0<\/em>article<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Under its former director, the San Francisco Arts Commission failed to properly track spending and had a fearful workplace, according to a city controller\u2019s audit released Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The report lays bare financial and management problems that festered in the $10 million city agency under Luis Cancel, former director of cultural affairs. Appointed by Mayor\u00a0Gavin Newsom, Cancel resigned this summer when he came under fire for clocking in from Brazil and mistreating staff.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Among other conclusions, auditors found that the Arts Commission was spending money that violated the city\u2019s reimbursement policies –\u00a0money held in accounts by Intersection for the Arts, the commission\u2019s nonprofit fiscal sponsor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Wait, did I just read that right? The San Francisco Arts Commission, an agency of city government, was using\u00a0one of its own grantees<\/a><\/em>\u00a0as a fiscal sponsor? Nothing against Intersection, which does great work, but\u2026huh?!)<\/p>\n

Anyway, things just get more bizarre from there. According to\u00a0the audit in question<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Surveyed\u00a0employees consistently reported that they did not feel that they could report misconduct or a\u00a0human resources issue without retaliation. Over one-third (35 percent) of respondents indicated\u00a0that they felt that staff could not report misconduct without fear of retribution. One response\u00a0stated, \u201cI certainly don\u2019t feel safe or comfortable lodging a complaint,\u201d while another stated,\u00a0\u201chistorically, we\u2019ve all been terrified of retribution (since 2008) because we all witnessed it in\u00a0action.\u201d<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Employees reported little to no relationship between the duties they perform and those in their\u00a0official job classification descriptions. A large majority (62 percent) of respondents indicated that\u00a0job classification specifications often do not match the employee\u2019s responsibilities and\u00a0workload. For instance, one response identified a case in which a person hired as an intern\u00a0continued to work for SFAC for over three years<\/strong>, taking on responsibilities that far exceeded those of an intern, with no change in classification or compensation to reflect the increased\u00a0responsibilities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yikes! So when I tell you that there\u2019s a huge uproar in the San Francisco artist community about the San Francisco Arts Commission, you gotta figure it\u2019s about the gross financial and employee mismanagement of the previous administration, right? Think again.<\/p>\n

Among the [audit’s] 12 recommendations, two, dealing with the\u00a0Cultural Equity Grants (CEG)<\/a>\u00a0program, are the most controversial. They say that the program should:<\/p>\n