RESOLUTION NO. 8566
A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF HAWTHORNE, CALIFORNIA, APPROVING BUDGET ALLOCATIONS FOR SPECIFIED ELECTED OFFICIALS FOR THE 2025-2026 FISCAL YEAR.
 

Staff Recommends that the City Council vote to adopt Resolution No. 8566
 

In July of 2011, the City Council approved a “budget policy” allocating to each elected official an amount to be used for donation to organizations sponsoring events in the City of Hawthorne. Since then, the City Council adopted a series of resolutions which have reaffirmed the original “budget policy” providing that the budget allocations only be used for community events approved by the City Council, that no elected official be permitted to donate to any event sponsored or co-sponsored by an organization to which that elected official is a board member, and that reports be filed no later than 45 days after the event has taken place.

On September 24, 2019, Hawthorne World Fest was added as an approved community event.  For the fiscal years 2019-2020 and 2020-2021, Resolution No. 8197 repealed the budget allocations due to the cancelation of events caused by the state of emergency related to the spread of COVID-19. On June 28, 2022 the City Council adopted Resolution No. 8368 which re-instituted the budget allocations, increase the amount per council member from $1,000 to $2,000 for the fiscal year of 2022-2023, and update the eligible list attached as “Exhibit A.” On March 28, 2023 the City Council voted to add three additional events to “Exhibit A”. In August 2023, City Council adopted Resolution 8426, reauthorizing the budget policy and allocations for the 2023-24 fiscal year and adopted Resolution 8434 in October of the same year, increasing the allocation amounts to $3,000. Finally, in June 2024, City Council adopted Resolution No. 8474 reauthorizing the budget policy and allocations for the 2024-2025 fiscal year, adding the Annual toy Giveaway and Annual Operation Gobble and removing the Wiseburn Educational Foundation from the list of City Sponsored Events. In July of the same year, council added four more events: Hawthorne Autism Awareness Walk, Education First, Langston Bar Association Legal Clinic, and Hawthorne Community Car Show. 

This resolution will create the budget allocations for the 2025-2026 fiscal year and update “Exhibit A” to include newly added events. The following are the requirements for any group seeking a city council member’s discretionary allocation:
 

• Events qualifying for city financial assistance must demonstrate a public benefit to the community by promoting cohesiveness, education, safety, health, or cultural awareness that yield significant improvement in basic living conditions for residents of Hawthorne.
• The organization responsible for the event must demonstrate a history of sources of funding, including private funding or the event seeking city financial support.
• Appropriate use of budget allocations includes food, beverage, rental fees and advertising costs of an event.  It will not include costs for staff time, such as employees in the public works, code enforcement or police department.
• The City Manager or his designee shall determine the appropriate documentation required for funding the event.
• Organizations receiving funding must agree not to discriminate against individuals or groups based upon race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, religion, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender expression, disability or political affiliation.
• Events funded through the Budget Allocation process must be open to residents of the City of Hawthorne.  No City funds may be used for private, political or fundraising purposes.
• The City Manager or his designee may adopt additional criteria, guidelines and details to these policies so long as they are consistent with the rules contained herein.
• No elected official may donate any part of the official’s budget allocation to any event sponsored or co-sponsored by an organization for which that elected official is a board member.
• Elected Officials are required to file a disbursement report with both the Finance Director and City Clerk.  The disbursement report will be kept on file as a public record in the City Clerk’s Department and will also be posted on the City Website.

Finally, the Hawthorne/Lawndale Ministerial Association Thanksgiving Luncheon will be added to Exhibit A.

 

N/A

$15,000.00 which will be allocated in the 2025-2026 budget.

72 hours posted notice pursuant to the Ralph M. Brown Act