What will happen if state arts agencies are eliminated?

In 4 states-Texas, Kansas, Washington, and South Carolina-governors have recently proposed completely cutting state arts agencies. We have seen an alarming trend of cutting budgets of state arts agencies recently, but this new idea of completley eliminating arts agencies altogether seems much more drastic. Not surprisingly, this idea has launched campaigns in states across the nation in an effort to save government arts funding and show the importance of the arts in our communities. The Arizona Commission on the Arts, for example, recently developed a campaign with the picture and phrase below:

"Kids will leave their mark, with or without the arts"

With the concept of "student matinees, training programs for teachers and administrators, " and "efforts to bring cultural events into inner cities and rural communities" in jeapardy because of these propsed cuts, it is more important now than ever before to focus on arts advocacy. Ken May, executive director of the South Carolina Arts Commission says: "It's a basic idea of our democratic society that if something is really beneficial to people, we should do our best to give everybody access to it. That's the reasoning behind public education, public parks, public libraries, and public support for the arts."

Some governments have proposed that these arts agencies become private non-profit organizations. However, this has usually been suggested with the (incorrect) belief that the "wealthy patrons" will be able and willing to fund the deficit created without government support. Clearly, for-profit and government leaders do not understand that the typical donor wants to fund the spectacle, the exciting project, the show of the century. Not the operating costs or helping to pay the water bill of the local theatre, which is what some government funds help to provide. Jonathan Katz, CEO of National Arts Agencies, had this to say of the government handling of arts funding:

"The arts are the golden goose, and we lay some pretty great eggs for our communities. economic impact, education, tourism, cultural understanding, civic engagement. At times I feel like our elected officials have their hands around the neck of the goose. They don't realize they're killing an industry that is forward-thinking, creative, and helping our state recover."

Since we are the leaders of the forward-thinking and creative industry, let's start working on how we can best change the funding model for our organizations to prevent this type of situation from becoming the expected and accepted.

http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/perilous-state-of-the-arts-agencies-28148/