FEDERAL More than nine months after former chair Rocco Landesman announced he was stepping down, the search for a new National Endowment for the Arts chairperson has stalled – just in time for the fall budget debates to ramp up in earnest. Sphinx Organization founder and president Aaron Dworkin confirms in the article that he was one of theRead More
Winter public arts funding update
Continuing a recent trend, the news from abroad is much more interesting than what’s happening here at home. Below, the round-up: FEDERAL Beyond the official departure of Rocco, it’s been a slow news season at the federal level for the arts. One series of developments, however, has involved the Internet Radio Fairness Act, or IRFA.Read More
Around the horn: Chick-Fil-A edition
Reminder: the last day to apply for the Createquity Writing Fellowship is today! ART AND THE GOVERNMENT Congratulations to the South Carolina Arts Commission, whose funding was preserved when elected representatives overrode Governor Nikki Haley’s veto of the commission’s entire budget. An additional veto that would have invalidated a one-time $500,000 increase for the commission wasRead More
Mid-summer public arts funding update
Normally, this would be the time of year when things start to wind down on the arts advocacy front, but the peculiar dynamics of this year’s Congress promise to keep things interesting well into the fall. Consideration of the FY13 budget has only just begun, and once again, a state arts agency faces a vetoRead More
Public arts funding update: February
For whatever reason, this is about the time of year when things start to heat up in budget land, for the federal government and states alike. From February through May, we’ll find out a lot about where the NEA and state arts council budgets stand for fiscal year 2013, and what the corresponding ramifications mightRead More
South Carolina Legislature overwhelms, overrides Governor’s veto of Arts Commission budget
Deja vu all over again. In the fiscal 2011 budget process, South Carolina’s former Governor Mark Sanford vetoed line item funding for the South Carolina Arts Commission, only to have his veto overridden by wide margins. History has just repeated itself. Governor Nikki Haley issued a similar line item veto yesterday, zeroing out $1.9 million in fundingRead More
South Carolina Arts Commission budget vetoed
For the second time in a month, a Republican governor has issued a line-item veto for the entire budget of a state arts agency. This time it is Nikki Haley of South Carolina doing the honors. Haley, like Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas, has made no secret of her desire to eliminate the Arts Commission,Read More
Public Arts Funding Update: May
Another month, and things haven’t let up much on the public arts funding front, especially for state arts councils. For last month’s update, try here. Andrew Taylor reports disturbing news for the Wisconsin Arts Board. It now looks like their best case scenario is likely a 66% cut, way out of proportion to what other agenciesRead More
Public Arts Funding Update: April
As you might have heard, public funding for the arts has been under pressure at the local and especially state levels ever since the recession hit a few years ago. This year, those pressures have spread to the federal government as well, and during the recent negotiations between Democrats and Republicans in Congress to agree onRead More