Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The Kansas Situation



By now everyone is very aware of the headlines that have been coming out of Kansas concerning the Kansas Art Commission and Governor Sam Brownback's proposal to end state funding to the KAC. The Governor has proposed to turn the KAC into a privately funded nonprofit organization and give it $200,000 to get started. While just this proposal is very concerning, I think there are a couple of positive things that can be taken from the reaction that has come out of it.


First of all, it seems hopeful that the Governor's proposal will fail. It has already been rejected by the Kansas House Government Efficiency Committee and is up for approval in the rest of the House. The supporters of the Art Commission have shown that ending the funding will lose the state twice as much money from outside sources, around 1.2 million dollars. Numbers are something that administrators do understand (no matter how hard we try to make other criteria mor important to them) and these numbers are difficult to argue against. In a 500 million dollar deficit, cutting a program that brings money into your state is an easy decision to ridicule.



And ridicule it people are! The numerous articles I have read are all attacking the Governor's proposition. Some focus more on the monetary side and some focus more on the cultural impact that the cuts would have, but the media is supporting the Art Commission. The extremely negative gesture that the Governor has made, seems to be turning into a lot of positive support for the arts. Hopefully this publicity is making people aware of the danger the arts are in and more and more people will show their support for arts organizations and their funding.


One final positive, is that in many articles, creative ways to finance arts funds are being offered up. Hopefully this will make government authorities and the public alike realize that education and welfare don't have to suffer for the arts to thrive. If some good publicity for the arts comes out of this attack, it can turn into a positive for arts organizations.

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