Naperville clarifying criteria for special event funding
Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct the use of grant funding at Sportsman's Park.
The grant that supports many special events in Naperville is in store for some tweaks to clarify how money is allocated and which events are most likely to receive funding.
City council members this week directed staff to come up with a scoring system to rank applications for money from the Special Events and Cultural Amenities grant, referred to as SECA, and to eliminate a category for "legacy events," which had created confusion.
A task force of members from the special events and cultural amenities commission is set to draft a scoring system to evaluate applications for next year, said Dawn Portner, special events coordinator. The system then can be assessed and put into place permanently for 2020.
Portner said the scoring system could include factors such as an event's location and benefit to the community and an organization's finances and ability to carry out the event without city help. Points could be given to events outside of downtown, which could encourage organizers to choose south Naperville sites, or to any other priority the council sets, City Clerk Pam Gallahue said.
The scoring system could help bring clarity to a subjective process that Mayor Steve Chirico said works well, despite criticism each year from organizations whose events are not funded.
"No matter what you do, people are going to complain about it," Chirico said.
Chirico said he's not sure how much clearer a scoring system will make the SECA process, but the majority of the council backed the idea.
Funded by a 1 percent citywide food and beverage tax established in 2005, SECA grants aim to "provide a diverse set of experiences for Naperville and its visitors," Gallahue said. Funding from the tax also has been diverted to causes, such as the Millennium Carillon as well as park accessibility and sustainability improvements at the Sportsman's Park shooting range.
Since 2015, funding for special events and cultural amenities has been capped at $1.9 million. That could increase because the council agreed to reinstate an annual adjustment for inflation, which will be 2 percent or the amount of the consumer price index, whichever is lower.
Adding back the escalator will allow the grant to fund a variety of programs, which was another goal set during Monday's workshop. That has been a challenge because the cost of providing police for events keeps rising, which eats into funding available for upstart activities or smaller gatherings, Gallahue said.
One other change is eliminating the "legacy events" category. Events previously included in the category, Ribfest and the Last Fling, will be scrutinized the same ways as other applicants.