Tourism agency's new grant system clogged
By Kelly Yamanouchi
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Hawaii Tourism Authority's new system of transferring money to counties to allocate tourism grants is aimed at fostering better relationships in local communities, but some community event organizers are becoming frustrated with glitches in the program's first year.
Some event organizers have waited for months to find out whether they will get money for events just days away or events that already have happened. Most are facing heavy competition for a smaller pool of money. Others who applied for grants are hearing they aren't eligible for tourism authority money after all, and money from other sources is scarce as government budgets are stretched thin.
Planners for events such as the Taste of Waipahu and Hilo's International Festival of the Pacific long have gone directly to the authority to apply for support — until this year, when the authority in May announced that it instead was going to allocate $600,000 each to the counties of Honolulu, the Big Island, Maui and Kaua'i to administer such programs for a year and a half of events. Those who had been applying to the tourism authority directly were told to apply to each of their counties instead.
The move by the tourism authority is intended to transfer more control and responsibility for supporting events that could boost tourism to local community leaders, and counties welcomed the additional money. The program also is meant to provide incentives for organizations to create new events in the niche areas of cultural tourism, health and wellness, educational tourism, ecotourism, technology tourism and agricultural tourism, especially during nonpeak travel seasons.
Part of the motivation for the switch was that the tourism authority had trouble deciding which events were needed in which communities.
"How do you go through the process of choosing to fund one event or another event, or one island over another island? It's very difficult," said David Carey, president and chief executive of Outrigger Enterprises Inc. and an authority board member.
A pilot program run by the county of Kaua'i last year to finance small events was successful, though the process this year of extending the program to three other counties has been more difficult.
"There have been some bumps ... It's a learning experience for everybody," said Robbie Blane, a tourism authority coordinator of the program. "After this year, everybody's going to be running very smoothly."
Each county runs its new grants program slightly differently, based on guidelines from the tourism authority, and the counties underwent different processes to accept the money from the tourism authority.
Kaua'i, with one year of experience behind it, already has completed its grants process. The Maui Office of Economic Development recently completed its decisions on about 60 grant applications. County economic development coordinator Roz Baker hired a part-time employee for the program.
"I thought it was a fairly smooth process," Baker said. "This really allows us to work with more programs, more activities, more festivals."
The Big Island is accepting applications and granting money on a rolling basis and has made final decisions on several grants so far. The grants committee meets every month to review more proposals.
For Honolulu, the transition to the new county-based program has been particularly trying, in part because the most populated island receives the same amount of money as the other counties.
"That seems unusual," said Sarah Richards, president of the Hawai'i Theatre Center, who applied for two county grants for musical performance series. "I would think it would be very competitive to get a grant on O'ahu and less competitive on the Neighbor Islands."
Part of the tourism authority's rationale for equal support in the county program is that O'ahu festivals and sporting events receive most of the money available through other tourism authority grant programs for larger events, and the authority also dedicates money to the Hawai'i Convention Center in Honolulu.
The level of support isn't the only reason Honolulu has had more difficulties, Carey said.
The program is aimed at working well in small communities, and it's more challenging in Honolulu because it is larger, he said. "Big city, big county government, harder to execute," he said.
Honolulu City Councilwoman Darrlyn Bunda, who was part of the council's process to approve the money for the new program and also applied for a grant for the Taste of Waipahu festival, said the grants process "is going very slowly."
When the tourism authority ran the program itself, applicants were usually notified in August. For Honolulu, the notifications started going out last month, said Manny Menendez, executive director of Honolulu's Office of Economic Development.
The county held a July 2 information session on the new program and applications were due July 31. The grants program is for events held from July 2002 to December 2003.
Nearly 100 O'ahu applicants applied for almost $6 million, while the county has $600,000 to allocate. A shortage of money makes the job even more difficult, Menendez said, adding that he said he thought $2 million would be an adequate amount for Honolulu.
World Invitational Hula Festival organizer Paulie Jennings said she received a letter late last month saying she was awarded $20,000, but said she still is concerned that the paperwork isn't finalized and could still cause problems for planning the Nov. 7-9 event at the Waikiki Shell.
Jennings said because she has had to wait so long for word on her application for $60,000, she missed deadlines to place advertisements in some magazines and so far has not been able to afford newspaper ads. Weeks ago, she told the engraver who helps produce trophies for the event that she did not have money to pay him.
Jennings recently put $1,500 of her own money into marketing the festival and is borrowing $5,000 from a supporter at Aloha Hula Supply. It was a better option than taking out a "bridge" loan from the state with as much as 14 percent interest, she said.
Jennings had counted on an approval much sooner.
"It's never been this late," she said. "I can't afford this."
An information packet on the grants said award letters would be mailed out beginning in August. The late notification of awards this year comes as a consequence of the short changeover period from the tourism authority's operation of the program to the counties, according to Menendez.
"It's just that when you're handing off the baton from the state to the city and county, I think there was a time gap there," Menendez said. "It's well worth that you take the funding and get it to our county organizations. ... You just crunch when you have to."
The county was told in May it would have responsibility for the program, and then had to seek City Council approval of an intergovernmental agreement to accept the funds. The legal agreement took time to hammer out, Menendez said, and the council did not approve the agreement until Sept. 25.
Because of the intergovernmental agreement, this year was an anomaly and next year all applicants will be notified within 30 days, he said.
A lack of staff to review the grants is another problem counties have dealt with. The counties are allowed to use 10 percent of the money for administrative costs, and in some cases existing staff are simply taking on the additional responsibility of evaluating grants themselves.
The increased workload has created a time crunch in Honolulu and on the Big Island.
"With all the other things we're doing, we're just absorbing it right into our workload, which I can tell you is very challenging, because this in itself is a full-time job," Menendez said.
On the Big Island, account clerk Lori Andrade is processing the grant requests, in addition to her county responsibilities for personnel, accounting, payroll and tourism contracts. The county is planning to hire an accountant for the grants process.
Counties have run into another problem: There is no niche in the money for applicants who are organizing small sporting events.
"We're finding a loophole that we can't help," Andrade said. "We're stuck. On the county side, we're very limited on funding."
Blane said the tourism authority is aware that the sporting events that do not qualify for larger tourism authority grants are not covered. "It has been an issue with every county," Blane said.
The tourism authority's strategic plan, however, does not prioritize sporting events that do not generate a certain level of attendance and media coverage. The strategic plan was the focus of discussions at a tourism authority retreat Oct. 21-22.
For those events, sports or otherwise, that do not receive money from the counties and are not statewide events, "There's no other program within HTA to support that," Blane said.
Honolulu officials, for their part, told applicants that the grants should not be a determining factor in whether an event could go on or not, and that the grants are intended to "enhance" events.
But event organizers who have counted on support from the tourism authority in past years say not knowing whether money is available or not receiving adequate money still makes it difficult to stage a successful event.
Michelle Kidani, chairwoman of the Taste of Waipahu festival Nov. 9 at Waipahu District Park, said it was difficult to plan the event without knowing where money is coming from, because she must commit to paying for special-duty police officers, parking control, safety systems, advertising, trash removal and trolley service.
She was happy to receive word in late October that her grant was approved for $15,000 — but that was still less than 30 percent of the amount requested and $10,000 less than last year. While the amount was helpful, she said, she may need to look for other sponsors to make up for the difference.
Richards of the Hawai'i Theatre Center is still waiting for a decision on one of her grant applications and said the decision could affect ticket prices for her events.
"The sooner you know, the better," she said. In some cases, she holds off on entering marketing contracts until she has secured money. "The impression I got was that they were going to make decisions quickly."
Reach Kelly Yamanouchi at 535-2470, or kyamanouchi@honoluluadvertiser.com.
Correction: The World Invitational Hula Festival will be held Nov. 7-9. The name of the event was incorrect in a previous version of this story.
