The president of Lexington’s umbrella arts organization fielded a number of questions from City Council members Tuesday. LexArt’s Ame Sweetall’s presentation covered a variety of topics such as recruiting new grant recipients, raising arts awareness in students, and the current arts registry. In the area of DEI, Sweetall said efforts are being made to broaden diversity.
“Our development plan includes targeted fundraising for equity programs, which allows more funding to target equity and diversity in the arts, and allow for more parity with the traditional art forms that typically receive the most funding,” said Sweetall.
Sweetall told members of the Council’s budget committee 69% of LexArts’ spending goes to artist grant programming, direct projects, and support. The LexArts CEO said recommendations from the city-funded arts and culture master plan are expected in October.
In response to a question by Council Member Dave Sevigny, Sweetall said the distribution of city funds to artists is improving.
“Going well, we’re meeting schedule and we’ve gotten all of those payments on schedule.” Said Sweetall.
“Do you think your partners, if I ask them would all agree with that? Asked Sevigny.
“I met with two of them this morning and they thanked me for being Johnny on the spot with our payments,” said Sweetall.
Sweetall said fundraising was difficult last year and there’s always the need for more money. The LexArts CEO said there are no reports of fiscal irresponsibilities. Sweetall said the arts umbrella organization had received a platinum rating on transparency.
Regarding an audit for internal operations at LexArts, Treasurer Stefan Hendrickson said closing policies have been implemented for each month, a checklist on who signs off. He noted procedures were added for incoming mail. Hendrickson added it involves third party review. The Council committee took no action regarding the report from LexArts.
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