“Every year New Braunfels awards 15% of the previous year's hotel occupancy tax collection, which is split 50/50 between the arts and heritage groups,” said Gayle Wilkinson, New Braunfels City Secretary. “The arts and heritage commissioners meet and they allocate grant funds to applicants based on applications.”
Applicants went through a three-step process that launched Sept. 1 and included a review of guidelines, completed application and budget forms, and submission of the application online. Applications closed on Oct. 31, when members of the Arts and Heritage Commission were given three months to score applicants based on a predetermined matrix.
“The matrix that we have is each board member rates everybody according to how they fulfill the requirements of the application, and based on that it comes up with a score that's an average,” New Braunfels Arts Commissioner Crystal Carter said. “And we use that to allocate as much as we can based on a percentage of how much money we have.”
Carter said the grant-funding process could be improved by holding a meeting before the arts commission presents its recommendations to council and to advertise the grants more to obtain more applicants.
Around $994,000 was requested from the Arts Commission, and about $390,000 was allocated to 10 applicants including the American Dance Company, Brauntex Theatre, Circle Arts Theatre and Greater New Braunfels Arts Council.
Around $340,000 was granted by the Heritage Commission to five organizations including the Heritage Society of New Braunfels, New Braunfels Conservation Society and the Sophienburg Archives and Museum of History. The commission was able to grant full funding to the applicants, and it has a surplus amount of around $56,000 that will be reallocated to next years fund, according to Wilkinson.
Council members authorized the next steps in distributing the funding, which consists of executing contracts with the organizations.
More information on the New Braunfels City Council meeting held on Jan. 9 can be found on its website.
