State Grant Program Realigned for More Parity : Arts funds: The California Arts Council will steer more money toward small-budget organizations and guarantee 2% for multicultural groups.

The California Arts Council has approved a plan which will redistribute grant money more evenly among large- and small-budget arts organizations, as well as set aside 2% of its funds for multicultural arts groups.

The plan--which will begin Nov. 15 and goes into effect in stages over the next two years--could result in cuts in the amount of state funding received by major arts organizations such as the Los Angeles Music Center.

In the past, smaller arts organizations--which usually rank lower on the scale of criteria by which the council allocates grant money--were hit harder by decreases in the total funding pie.

“The lower ranks were subsidizing the higher ranks,” said Juan Carillo, deputy director of programs for the council. “We decided to stop it. That inconsistency has led to all kinds of dissatisfaction. It’s not a sweeping change, it’s more a fine tuning that’s going on. It’ll have some significant impact on some organizations.”

The plan also includes upping the council’s minimum grant from $2,000 to $5,000, as well as efforts to increase council representation among “artists of color” and improving outreach to multicultural arts groups.

The changes come as the result of a study by the Organizations Support Program, a council task force. Its recommendations were accepted by the arts council last week.

In another development, the council plans to eliminate nine administrative positions because of cutbacks in state funding. The fiscal 1991 budget was $19.97 million; that figure has dropped to $15.84 million for fiscal 1992.

The council will pare its administrative budget by at least $293,000 in 1992, said chief deputy director Kathi Stockdale. Among targeted layoffs is Barbara LaPan Rham, coordinator of the council’s Traditional Folk Arts program, a post requiring a folklorist who can deal with a variety of ethnic communities and artists. The program will stay, but LaPan Rham probably will be replaced by a grants administrator from another CAC department, Stockdale said.

The move could jeopardize the folk art program’s ability to continue receiving National Endowment for the Arts funding, agency officials said. The NEA historically has not given money to state folk arts programs unless they are conducted by people “of some breadth and depth” of training and experience working with folk artists, said Bess Lomax Hawes, the NEA’s folk arts program director.

Joanne Kozberg, a member of the Board of Governors of the Music Center of Los Angeles County since 1980, took over as the new executive director of the California Arts Council Monday.

The council also has announced five new board members, whose nominations are subject to approval by the state Senate:

* Iris Dart, 47, of Pebble Beach, a novelist and screenwriter;

* David C. Lizarraga, 50, chief executive officer of the East Los Angeles Community Union;

* Edward C. Cazier Jr., 66, a senior partner at the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius;

* James L. Loper, 59, of Pasadena, executive director of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences; and

* Peter B. Bedford, 53, of Lafayette, president and founder of Bedford Properties.