Hello James,

I posit the importance of paying cultural experts for our work.

As a consultant, I advise my municipal clients to offer an honorarium to artists and other self-employed experts for their time. The amount varies depending on the work and project budget. For a recent, single-round purchasing project of nominated artists, the work was online review of 56 images and rating each image. The honorarium was $50. For a design/build project with semi-finalist in-person interviews and group discussion to consensus, the honorarium was $1,000.

The funding is from the percent for art allocation which provides for art consultants fees. Your panelists are project consultants. Governmental employees are not offered an honorarium, and some are not allowed to accept them.

As an artist, I have been offered this same range for jurying through on-line review to multiple, 8 hour on-site meetings. Sometimes I accept the fee, sometimes I decline. It depends on the work, project size, tasks and expectations.

If you are establishing program precedent, I urge you to consider the expertise you want on your selection panels and set expectations accordingly.

Helen Lessick

HelenLessick.net

On Fri, 30 Oct 2020 at 07:35, Martin, James - James.Martin at kcmo.org (via public_art_network list) <public_art_network@americansforthearts.simplelists.com> wrote:

Hello all, could you please share your wisdom regarding paying an honorarium to selection panelists that are being recruited from the community? We currently have an ad-hoc committee where committee members with long experience in the arts favor paying selection panelists that are being recruited from the community. The other members of the committee express reservations. Panelists will work 15-20 hours, resulting in a recommendation of a proposal finalist and alternate to our Municipal Art Commission. Could you please share:

Do you pay honoraria to selection panelists that are recruited from the community? (MAC members who also sit on the selection panel are not paid.)
If so, how much is your typical honorarium? We have imagined $500 for 15-20 hours of work.
What funding source do you use for the honoraria? In KC, the authorizing language for the One Percent for Art seems to prevent those funds from being used for anything other than artist contracts. Consequently, I’m considering using a small general fund budget, but that path seems to have its drawbacks.

Many thanks,

James Martin, MA

Public Art Administrator

General Services Department

Facilities & Architecture Division

City of Kansas City, MO

414 E 12^th St., City Hall 17^th Floor

Kansas City, MO 64106

www.kcmo.gov/art

james.martin@kcmo.org

816-513-3422

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