Governor Proposes Increase for the Arts
1/25/07
1. Governor Proposes Increase for the Arts
2. State Poet Laureate Bill Introduced
3. Join MCA in MySpace
4. Save the Date: Arts Advocacy Day will be March 8, 2007
5. Artists Count! To Be Released on Advocacy Day
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1. Governor Proposes Increase for the Arts
Governor Pawlenty unveiled his budget for the next two years this week. He proposed adding an additional $500,000 per year, or $1 million total, to the appropriation for the arts. The money would be added to the Minnesota State Arts Board and Regional Arts Councils budgets for grants and administration. (Currently the state appropriates approximately $8.5 million to the arts annually). The context for this increase, while it is welcome, is that the Governor proposed cutting 40% of the appropriation in 2002, resulting in a cut of 32% that year.
Although this is an excellent first step, our number one priority this year is that the appropriation be fully restored. This would take approximately $5.5 million per year if we included a small increase for inflation. The good news is that the Governor’s recommendation will strengthen our message of restoration. At the first hearing on the appropriation in the Legislature last week, the new Minnesota State Arts Board Interim Director, Tom Proehl, did a wonderful job doing an overview of the state’s support for the arts and the need for more support.
Other Legislation
MCA’s long term goal is a constitutional amendment dedicating a small portion of sales tax revenue to Minnesota’s Heritage* This bill has the potential to double or triple state funding for the arts. The funding, just like the regular appropriation, would benefit arts organizations and artists in every Minnesota county via grants from the Regional Arts Councils and Minnesota State Arts Board. There are now six versions of this bill introduced in the House and Senate, some of which include the arts and some of which don’t. The first Senate hearing on the bills was held on Wednesday, and three people testified on behalf of the arts for MCA: Carolyn Bye from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, Sean Dowse from the T.B. Sheldon Theatre in Redwing, and Lia Rivamonte from Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts. They did a really terrific job of making the case for better funding of the arts in Minnesota. If you live in the district of one of the Senators on this committee, you will have received a separate email from us asking you to contact them before Monday, January 28, 2007. There will be many more hearings in many more committees before the legislature decides what to do with these bills. Although it is early in the legislative session, establishing early on the will of the Senate to include the arts in this bill will make an important statement.
*There are many versions of the bill at this point. Some or all of them include the arts, parks and trails, clean water, game and fish habitat, and other items. Some versions of the bill would bring the arts around $23 million per year by FY09. Some versions of the bill would ask the voters to approve a small additional sales tax (3/8th of 1%, or about 37 cents for each $100 spent). Some versions would just designate these funds from “current revenues.” (It is this difference between the House and Senate bills that has been the most controversial, and which in the end kept the bill from passing last year).
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2. State Poet Laureate Bill Introduced
The political pundits participating in MPR’s “Fantasy Legislature” have designated Rep. Phyllis Kahn’s bill to establish a Poet Laureate for Minnesota as a winner. They think it’s one of the bills most likely to pass both houses, to be vetoed by the Governor, and then to have the veto overridden by both the House and Senate. Let’s hope they are right. Co-authors in the House are Representatives Urdahl, Hilty, Jaros and Hausman.
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3. Join MCA in MySpace
MCA is redesigning our website and hope to launch the new one soon. In the meantime, we’ve joined the community of MySpace to give our Campus Arts Advocates a quick place to pick up information about Advocacy Day and other activities. We’ve got some fun pictures and even a video about MCA that is living on this page and in You Tube. Thanks to MCA Field Worker Mark Albers, who is many years younger than me, for making these innovations possible. Check out the page at: http://www.myspace.com/mncitizensforthearts
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4. Save the Date: Arts Advocacy Day will be March 8, 2007
Minnesota Citizens for the Arts invites you to join your fellow arts advocates at the MN History Center and State Capitol to talk about the arts, make new friends, and educate our legislators about the importance of the arts to Minnesota. At Arts Advocacy Day, YOU along with individual artists, rural theaters, suburban choirs, big institutions, museums, art centers, painters, tenors, students, dancers, musicians, arts administrators, arts lovers will join together to talk about the impact of the arts on the economy and communities of our state.
And be the first to hear the results of Artists Count! a comprehensive statewide and regional economic impact study of individual artists in Minnesota.
Our goal this year is to restore arts funding. Be part of the team! Register online and find out more at www.mtn.org/mca
Arts Advocacy Day Schedule
March 8th, 2007
7:30 Park and meet at: THE MINNESOTA HISTORY CENTER in St. Paul
8:00 to 8:30 am History Center Auditorium Advocacy Class for New Attendees
8:00 to 8:30 am History Center Lobby Registration & Coffee (if not attending the class)
8:30 SHARP to 9:30 am History Center Auditorium Advocacy Seminar. Presentation on Artists Count! And Join Your Team (We strongly urge you to attend this seminar for an up-to-the-minute view of the 2007 legislative session. You need to attend this session in order to join your team.)
9:30 to 10:00 am Walk/Ride to the State Capitol
9:30 to 1:00 pm Legislator Appointments, and Home Base at the State Capitol
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5. Artists Count! To Be Released on Advocacy Day
The economic impact of the artists of our state were studied this year through a groundbreaking economic impact study conducted by Minnesota Citizens for the Arts (MCA), Springboard for the Arts and the Minnesota Crafts Council. For the first time ever, six regional studies as well as a statewide study measuring the economic impact of individual artists, as well as a look at artists’ access to health care and retirement plans, has been produced. The results of these seven studies will be released for the first time at the morning rally at Arts Advocacy Day. As an attendee, you will receive the very first public reports of the economic impact of artists in Minnesota as well as in your own region. We are more and more excited about the results of these studies and believe that they will be very useful both for statewide and for local arts advocay. No matter where you live in Minnesota, you will have a regional report that you can use to talk about the economic impact of artists in your own area.
Nationally, arts advocates agree that the most effective arguments for funding the arts these days include the economic impact of the arts sector. These new studies will give us brand new tools to advocate for the arts, particularily because we can now add the economic impact of artists to the research that was released last year, The Arts: A Driving Force in Minnesota’s Economy* that studied the economic impact of Minnesota’s arts and culture organizations.
*Copies of all fourteen The Arts: A Driving Force in Minnesota’s Economy reports (the statewide, eleven regional, and two cities) are now available for free downloading from MCA’s website at www.mtn.org/mca. That study was conducted by Minnesota Citizens for the Arts and the Forum of Regional Arts Councils of Minnesota and was also, like Artists Count! funded primarily by The McKnight Foundation. The organizational report includes eleven regional studies and one statewide report that provides an aggregate view of arts economic activity across Minnesota from rural communities, to small towns and urban areas of the state. The research found that every region of the state, no matter how rural, had at least $1 million in economic impact from nonprofit arts and culture organizations. That study also found that the Seven County Metro’s nonprofit arts industry is 2 1/2 times larger than similar population centers studied such as Houston, TX, Miami-Dade, FL, and St. Louis, MO. Two new studies based on the earlier research were also released just last week covering only the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
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MCA is a non-partisan statewide arts advocacy organization whose mission is to ensure opportunity for all people to have access to and involvement in the arts. MCA organizes the arts community and lobbies the Minnesota State Legislature and Congress on issues pertaining to the nonprofit arts. If you are interested in learning more about how to advocate for the arts, or how to activate people in your arts organization or community to lobby for the arts, please call us at 651-251-0868 or e-mail mca@mtn.org.
State arts funding supports access to the arts for all Minnesotans. The state-funded Minnesota State Arts Board and eleven Regional Arts Councils provide grants and services in every Minnesota county for artists, arts organizations, arts projects and school artist residencies. For more information on regional or state grants, go to http://www.arts.state.mn.us/racs/index.htm