Council for the Arts asks committee to restore grants officer FTE, fund fabrication and site work after Senate halves request

At an appropriations committee hearing, the North Dakota Council for the Arts asked lawmakers to restore a second full-time equivalent grants program officer, to permit limited use of a maintenance endowment to fabricate public artworks and to fund site infrastructure for its “Arch Across the Prairie” initiative.

The request includes: reinstating a grants program officer FTE (the council says the work is already being done by a combination of a hybridized admin FTE and a long-term temporary employee), a $380,000 fabrication request from a maintenance endowment the Senate trimmed to $190,000, and a $559,750 decision package for infrastructure, engineering and site work.

Why it matters: Council leaders said the staff increase would improve grant administration and service to rural grantees, while the fabrication and infrastructure funding would allow planned public artworks to be built and installed across regions. Committee staff and counsel discussed legal limits on how the endowment can be used and operational constraints if the National Guard is engaged for site work.

Council staffing, workload and request

Jess, a presenter for the Council for the Arts, told the committee that during the last biennium the agency requested two FTEs — an administrative assistant and a grants program officer — but received only the administrative assistant as a full FTE and left the grants work hybridized across positions. Jess said a long-term temporary worker has been performing…