arts alert: Senate Committee Also Takes Stand Against Pawlenty’s Arts Cuts
MCA
Minnesota Citizens for the Arts
2233 University Ave. W. #355
St. Paul, MN 55155
651-251-0868 fax 651-917-3561
staff at mncitizensforthearts.org
www.mncitizensforthearts.org
Arts Action Center
April 15, 2009
1. Senate Committee Also Recommends Reducing Governor’s Arts Cuts!
2. Virtual Arts Advocacy Day Generates Over 1000 letters
3. Head of McKnight Foundation Takes a Stand for the Arts
4. Arts Issues Background – Updated
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1. Senate Committee Also Recommends Reducing Governor’s Arts Cuts!
Your voices are being heard! Today our Senate committee, nearly matching the House committee, also recommended drastically reducing cuts to the Minnesota State Arts Board and Regional Arts Councils from 50% to 10%. (The House committee last week recommended reducing the cut to 7.8%). Thank you to Senators Cohen and Tomassoni for helping the arts.
We expect, therefore, that after the bills pass the Senate and House floors and the differences are worked out in Conference Committee, that the final outcome for regular arts funding could very well fall somewhere between these two numbers. Funding for the arts as been just over $10M per year for the past two years. This Senate recommendation would bring it down to around $9.3M per year. There is still the danger that the state’s budget will take another downwards lurch, or other unforeseen events may affect the state’s budget. As they say, it’s not over until it’s over. But we should all be VERY happy with how your calls and letters have improved the outlook for the arts so far!
Still to come: decisions on how the state will spend the revenue from the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment, of which 19.75% must be spent on “arts, arts education and arts access and to preserve our history and cultural heritage.” It may be a week or two before we see the committee’s recommendations on this.
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2. Virtual Arts Advocacy Day Generates 1000+ letters
Thank you to all who participated!
Thank you to all who were a part of Virtual Arts Advocacy Day. The numbers are in and you’ve made a big splash! Since January 1, we’ve delivered over 2900 letters to legislators asking them to support the arts, over 1000 of these since we started the push for Virtual Arts Advocacy Day. On Monday we could hardly keep up with the letters as they rolled in.
The Winners: Everyone who participated in Virtual Arts Advocacy Day between April 1 and April 13 was eligible to win a free Arts Advocate t-shirt. And the randomly selected winners are…Hwai-Chyi Kuei of Shoreview, Alice Hofstad of Plummer, Jessica Rau of Minneapolis, Billy Curmano of Winona and Judith Niemi of St. Paul. Congratulations to you all.
It’s not too late to be a part of the action: Send a letter to your legislator TODAY saying you want them to protect the arts. You can do it in 5 minutes with our simple Arts Action Center. We give you talking points and set it up, all you have to do is enter your name and address and the letter will go automatically to the right elected officials.
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3. Head of McKnight Foundation Takes a Stand for the Arts
Kate Wolford, President of the McKnight Foundation, published an editorial in the St. Paul Pioneer Press on Monday which endorses directing constitutional amendment resources to the Minnesota State Arts Board and Regional Arts Councils. I thought it was important to share it with you:
Use a tried-and-trusted mechanism — the State Arts Board and regional councils
Updated: 04/10/2009 08:20:33 PM CDT, St. Paul Pioneer PressThe Minnesota State Arts Board and Regional Arts Councils are ready to serve.
More than 1.6 million Minnesotans voted to amend our state’s constitution in November. By passing the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment, Minnesotans cast a historic vote to supplement traditional sources of funding to preserve and enhance the state’s cultural and environmental assets. But the amendment was only one important step toward serving voters’ intent.
To ensure that funds raised via the amendment are managed effectively for decades, it now falls on lawmakers to establish a statewide distribution plan before the Legislature adjourns on May 18. Fortunately for the amendment’s arts provision, a ready-made mechanism already exists: the Minnesota State Arts Board, an essential state-funded agency, working in partnership with Minnesota’s 11 Regional Arts Councils.
Since 1981, the Regional Arts Councils have been funded primarily through the State Arts Board and the privately endowed McKnight Foundation. The independent, locally led arts councils provide useful models of successful public-private collaboration to sustain progress. And the arts board, in its role as an enduring and respected state government agency, would further ensure the meaningful transparency, geographic reach, financial oversight and taxpayer accountability that this investment requires.
With statewide needs to be met and Minnesotans’ hard-earned investments hanging in the balance, such a public-private partnership promises the greatest opportunities for success. Collaboration between the arts board and the arts councils offers a time-tested, trusted network through which to equitably share resources and preserve the state’s arts and cultural heritage, as voters intended.
In a bleak economy, discussions tend to pit crisis-response spending against other investments. In both funding and planning, the arts are too often placed last on the list – a practice I probably hadn’t questioned before coming to Minnesota and witnessing firsthand the extraordinary contributions of the arts to the vitality of our state economy and civic life.
By their vote, it’s clear that many Minnesotans agree with me. We know robbing the future for a quick fix today is not a wise approach. That is why the majority voted to dedicate money for the next 25 years to “supplement traditional sources of funding (that) … may not be used as a substitute.” Maintaining public funding in addition to the constitutionally mandated supplement will strengthen our economy and build communities.
Recent studies by Minnesota Citizens for the Arts revealed that the state’s artists, arts organizations and audiences contribute more than $1 billion annually to our economy.
Before the economic downturn, the sector supported 28,000 full-time jobs and generated more than $118 million in state and local government revenue alone. Almost 45,000 Minnesotans donate an average of more than 40 hours per year to the arts and cultural activities, according to Minnesota Citizens for the Arts. Of the artists themselves, four out of five volunteer monthly and more than 80 percent report that they vote in every election.
With so much at stake and a decisive voting majority watching, the Legislature must make good on its end of the deal to forge a sound plan for distribution of the amendment’s arts-related funding. In partnership with the regional arts councils, the Minnesota State Arts Board is uniquely positioned to lead this effort.
The voters have done their part. Now lawmakers have an opportunity to set a course of action that will serve the people of Minnesota for generations.”
Kate Wolford is president of the McKnight Foundation, a Minnesota-based family foundation. Reach her by e-mail at info@mcknight.org.
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4. Arts Issues Background – Updated
On election day, Minnesotans approved a once in a lifetime investment in the arts. Passage of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment is expected to create anywhere from $40 to $50 million annually to support the arts, arts access, arts education and history. The amendment also says these new resources should not be a substitute for traditional sources of funding. Unfortunately, the new money won’t be available for a while, perhaps not until late 2010 or 2011. (The new tiny increase in the state sales tax, created by the Amendment, doesn’t start until July, 2009, and then the funds raised by the tax will need to accumulate in the new Arts and Culture Fund before they can be spent).
The Amendment’s details will be sorted out in the Minnesota House Cultural and Outdoors Resources Finance Division, chaired by Rep. Mary Murphy, as well as Sen. David Tomassoni’s Economic Development and Housing Division in the Senate, this legislative session, which ends in May. The state has a huge deficit. Just like he has done before, the Governor has proposed cutting the Minnesota State Arts Board (MSAB) and Regional Arts Councils by 50% over the next two years, and then eliminating the MSAB completely after that. This is contrary to the wishes of the voters who passed the amendment by 56% – a higher percentage vote than that received by President Obama in Minnesota. Minnesotans want MORE investments in the arts and culture, not less.
** MCA is delighted to announce that all of the calls and letters we have generated to Minnesota’s legislators are beginning to have their effect. Rep. Murphy’s House committee passed a bill to reduce the Governor’s proposed 50% cut to the arts to 7.8%. Now Sen. Tommasoni’s Senate committee for their part has recommended the cut be reduced to 10%. The final outcome should be somewhere in between those two numbers, as long as there are no other major shifts in the state’s deficit problem. Considering the context of the state’s massive deficit, this would be a very reasonable outcome for the arts.The final outcome will not be for months, but this is a very good first step! The seperate decisions on how the legislature will spend the revenues of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment are not expected for several weeks. Therefore, now is the perfect time to make your voice heard. Send your legislators a letter at the Arts Action Center.
MCA had a huge role in the Vote Yes! campaign to pass the amendment. Our position is that the legislature should, as we have been discussing for several years, appropriate at least 50% of the new resources from the amendment to the Minnesota State Arts Board and Regional Arts Councils, so that it does indeed reach every MN county through their grants and services and is not diverted to some other, unknown purpose. We also oppose eliminating the Minnesota State Arts Board or turning it into a private, non-profit, as it will largely be spending public dollars and should remain in the highly accountable, transparent public system.
Check out two great videos from Arts Advocacy Day Held February 24, 2009:
Here’s a video of highlights from the Arts Advocacy Day kickoff rally on MN Stories by Chuck Olsen:
http://www.mnstories.com/
…and a 3 Minute Egg arts show by Matt Peiken with interviews of attendees and some footage of meetings with legislators:
http://www.mnstories.com/
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