California Governor Moves to Modestly Improve Meager State Arts Budget
Submitted by Steve on May 18, 2015
From Mike Boehm, reporting for the Los Angeles Times:
California has long ranked at or near the bottom nationally in per capita taxpayer funding of its state arts agency. The $5-million increase from the $1.1 million in Brown’s initial arts budget would push the state’s arts spending to about 24 cents for each state resident. The national per capita average is $1.09, according to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. To reach it California would have to increase the arts council budget to $42.3 million.
But the increase to $6.1 million in state tax appropriations is significant because of the fine print, said Daniel Savage, chief of staff to Assembly member Adrin Nazarian (D-Sherman Oaks), who has pushed for better arts-grant funding over the last three years with mixed results. Last year, Nazarian and other arts advocates went through a similar exercise with a similar bottom-line outcome: Brown started by proposing the usual $1.1 million from the general fund, then agreed to an increase to $6.1 million in the home stretch of the annual budget process. The $1.1 million commitment is the amount needed to fully qualify for matching federal funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.