Arts an easy target when budgets are slashed

updated 4:03 p.m. ET Aug. 29, 2009

LAWRENCE, Kan. - Ben Ahlvers is a full-time arts education coordinator, but his passion is with the fanciful creatures, human figures and oversize hammers he fashions from clay.

The nationally recognized ceramic artist was chosen to receive a fellowship from the Kansas Arts Commission to attend an artist residency in Montana. But after Kansas officials cut the commission's budget midyear by $300,000, he didn't receive the $1,000 check.

"They were still going to have a reception and I joked to somebody that I was going to go and eat $1,000 worth of finger food," said Ahlvers, 35, who said he and his wife had to live off their credit cards and sell more of his artwork to fund the trip.

"The $1,000 would have made it a lot easier and I wouldn't have had to fret as much," he said.

States across the country are slashing their arts funding for the second year in a row as they cope with falling tax revenues. Those cuts, which often happen during recessions, are a serious blow to arts agencies and individual dancers, painters and actors at a time when private donations are down and many art organizations are being more selective in what they produce.

Officials must be risk-averse
Julie Britton, vice president of development or the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center in Florida, said officials may have to skew away from avant-garde art designed to push boundaries in favor of things more certain to sell tickets.

"Part of our mission is to bring people things that are new," said Britton. "That's very difficult to do when you have to be risk-averse in this situation."

The Tampa Bay center's state grant is expected to be $25,000 or less this year, which is down from $200,000 a couple years ago.

The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies estimates states reduced their arts funding an average of 7 percent in the fiscal year that began July 1. That average doubles to 14 percent when Minnesota is not included because the state almost tripled its art budget to $30.2 million thanks to a new sales tax.

In financially strapped states such as Arizona, South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Louisiana and Florida, the reductions are steeper, falling 30 percent or more, forcing agencies to trim the amount or value of grants, shutter programs that provide arts education and lay off employees. In two states that haven't completed their annual budgets — Pennsylvania and Connecticut — lawmakers are considering eliminating their state arts agencies entirely.

States did get a boost this year in funding from the National Endowment for the Arts and some one-time job preservation grants through the federal stimulus bill. But administrators said the money won't make up for all the funding they've lost.

"It's really going to have a devastating effect," said Terry Scrogum, executive director of the Illinois Arts Council, which saw its budget fall 51 percent this year to $7.8 million. "We're going to try to maintain as many of the operating grants as we can. They're obviously going to be at a reduced level. Others will be whittled down or suspended."

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