SECA FAQ
- Allison Longenbaugh
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Special Events & Community Arts funding (SECA) has come up at recent Naperville City Council meetings. As the former Council Liaison, I have experience with the process. City staff and commissioners dedicate hours and hours of work to ensure a transparent and robust review. Here are some FAQs. (Bear with me; there are a lot.)
WHY DO WE HAVE SECA? The fund was established in 2004 to “fund social and artistic events and entities, providing cultural experiences for the Naperville community and its visitors.”
The city decides to fund/not fund a specific event/art. It is not funding the organization itself. Funding is not fungible; it cannot go towards administrational support of the organization.
WHERE DOES SECA GET ITS FUNDS? The City collects a 1% Food & Beverage Tax from restaurants in the city. SECA receives around $2M/year from F&BT; $1M to fixed city obligations (e.g. fireworks, Carillon maintenance, Municipal Band) & $1M for events (allocated by the commission). The rest of the tax goes to Police & Fire Pensions, Social Service Grants, and debt service.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SECA & SOCIAL SERVICE GRANTS? Social Service Grants (SSG) provide a total of $750K to non-profit social service agencies and $100K to opioid remediation services serving Naperville residents. Council previously made their own anonymous funding allocations for a small portion of Social Service Grants, but in 2024, Council voted to remove that.
WHO CAN SUBMIT A SECA GRANT APPLICATION? There are a number of restrictions, e.g. grantees must be a tax-exempt 501c non-profit & the event must be held in Naperville.
HOW MANY APPLICATIONS DOES THE CITY GET? In 2024, it was 84, which sounds like a lot, but equated to 60 organizations. Some organizations submit multiple projects, and the city service amounts are kept separate. Examples: The Illinois Conservatory for the Arts submitted 5, Three Fires Council and Downtown Naperville Alliance each had 4, and KidsMatter, YMCA, & West Suburban Irish had 3! Having so many organizations who want to bring new & fun experiences to Naperville is a wonderful problem to have.
WHAT’S IN THE APPLICATION? A description of the project/event, project budget, & detailed financials of the organization. If it’s an outdoor event that might impact traffic or require police presence, they must also request a special event permit so the city can estimate the “city services” cost. In some cases, they might also need a permit from the Park District.
WHAT’S THE TIMELINE? This takes a few months! Every meeting is open to the public; there are no closed-session meetings.
July: mandatory application workshop for grantees
Sept 5: Applications open.
Oct 3: Applications due. Staff & Commissioners review them all. It takes awhile because some applications are 150+ pages!
Nov 15: public commission meeting in Council Chambers where grantees can (but are not required to) present their projects. There is lots of Q&A between commissioners & applicants.
Dec 11: another public commission meeting in Council Chambers to make final decisions on amounts.
Jan 20, 2026 (though could be pushed later): Council votes on the grants as a whole, though it does retain the authority to make changes.
Public Comment/Forum is available at all city board & commission meetings.
WHAT HAPPENS AT THE DECEMBER MEETING? There is a spreadsheet! Staff compiles the commissioners’ allocations, removes events that only received funding from 3 commissioners, and calculates an average for each event based on the 9 allocations. That’s a starting point for the discussion. From there, staff & commissioners discuss & debate each event and make their decisions. The discussions are lively!
HOW DO COMMISSIONERS DECIDE HOW TO ALLOCATE? The beauty of having a diverse board is that they have different philosophies about allocating. Some focus on new events/organizations because they feel that SECA should be “seed money”. Some use spreadsheet formulas to give a percentage to everyone, and tweak from there, maybe removing items or rounding up for small events.
ARE THERE ANY RESTRICTIONS ON COMMISSIONERS MAKING ALLOCATIONS? To avoid any conflict of interest, if a commissioner has a tie to an organization (e.g. serves on its advisory board), they are not allowed to allocate. To make it even more fair, the requested amount for that project is further deducted from the commissioner’s $1M total so they can’t allocate it to a different organization. (And the liaison doesn’t allocate/vote, but I always did the work to see how my numbers compared. (And I love spreadsheets.))
WHY ARE THE ALLOCATIONS ANONYMOUS? This is to prevent any potential harassment of individual commissioners, or create hard feelings if a commissioner doesn't vote for a particular request. All meetings are open to the public for anyone to attend. There are no closed session meetings and it’s fully transparent.
ARE THERE RESTRICTIONS ON COUNCIL MEMBERS VOTING? Before the SECA vote at the 2/21/2023 Council meeting, former Mayor Chirico addressed potential conflicts of interest to assure residents that their votes would be unbiased:
“While we, as a Council, have relationships, the rules state to recuse, you must have a financial interest, and if that is in fact the case, there will be a recusal. If not, then all of us on the dais have a responsibility to vote on these issues.”
HOW DOES A GRANTEE RECEIVE THEIR GRANT? They get reimbursed AFTER the event when they submit receipts to staff. There’s no money given up-front, and staff verifies that each receipt was for the event. This protects the city from fraud, too.
HOW DO THE COMMISSIONERS GET APPOINTED? Just like all boards & commissions, they submit applications, the Mayor chooses (through an interview process), and Council approves. Commissioners can serve two 3-year terms.
Hope that helps clear up any confusion around the process.
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