California arts hung out to dry - Front Page

Art in America, Oct, 2003 by Stephanie Cash

The state of California can't get a break, from the dot-com bust to rolling blackouts, and now a $38-billion budget deficit that may lead to the ouster of Governor Gray Davis in a recall vote on Oct. 7. While agencies and institutions have already been dealing with budget shortfalls and girding for more cutbacks, no one expected that the troubled economy would mean the almost total obliteration of the state's arts funding by the Democrat-controlled state legislature. With culture always an easy target in tough economic times, California could serve as a chilling case study in public support for the arts.

On Aug. 2, the $99-million state budget was signed, and the California Arts Council's 2003-04 allocation was officially slashed by 94 percent, from $17.54 million to $1 million, dropping it from an already low 40th to dead last in the nation for per capita arts spending. In 2000-01 the CAC received $30.7 million from the state. The $1 million in state funds was the minimum required to secure the agency's share of monies from the National Endowment for the Arts ($960,000). It will continue to receive state revenue from the sale of vanity license plates (about $870,000), as well as private funds, including a grant from the Wallace Foundation ($600,000 over three years), bringing the agency's total budget to just under $3 million. While the national average for state arts spending is $1.10 per capita, California will spend less than 3 cents per capita for at least the next fiscal year.

As a result of the cuts, the CAC immediately suspended its grants programs to artists and institutions and laid off about one third of its 37-member staff. Former grant recipients have included the California Assembly of Local Arts Agencies, the L.A. County Arts Commission, San Diego's Museum of Contemporary Art, San Francisco's Mexican Museum and alternative space Southern Exposure, and a multitude of small visual art, theater and music groups, many with educational directives geared toward schoolchildren.

In a statement on the agency's Web site, CAC director Barry Hessenius said that the agency will focus on protecting the organizations, programs and projects that are critical to the state's arts infrastructure, with particular emphasis on programs that cater to underserved schools, youths at risk, seniors and people with disabilities. He said that much of the staff's energy will go to determining how best to fulfill the agency's mission and to locate other funding sources to support its programs. An on-line database will be created to provide information on support alternatives for artists and groups. The CAC is also exploring the possibility of establishing Arts Enterprise Zones that would provide tax credits for business investment in the arts and landlord credits for reduced rents to artists and organizations.

According to CAC spokesperson Adam Gottlieb, one of the most viable revenue sources at this time is the arts license plate program. Designed by Wayne Thiebaud, the plates start at $30-70 each with an annual renewal fee of $15-40. Some 105,000 plates have been issued this year, with a sizeable portion of the fees going to support the CAC.

Among the politicians who rallied to save the agency is state senator Jack Scott [Dem.], who wrote an op-ed piece in the Aug. 25 Los Angeles Times stating that "I had one of the hardest fights of my life this year to prevent the legislature from eliminating the California Arts Council entirely. Not just defunding it, but eliminating it from the state....

California almost became the first state in the nation to abolish all public funding of the arts." While acknowledging the tough decisions lawmakers had to make and the severe cuts to education and health care, he made a strong case for the importance of the arts in local communities.