The Impact of Potential Budget Cuts to the Arts Industry, Tourism, and Living Museums

Senate Committee on Cultural Affairs, Tourism, Parks and Recreation Assembly Committee on Tourism, Arts, and Sports Development

Delivered by Richard Kessler, Executive Director

Re: The impact of potential budget cuts to the arts industry, tourism, and living museums
February 3, 2009

Good morning Chairmen Serrano and Englebright and committee members. My name is Richard Kessler; I am the Executive Director of The Center for Arts Education, a not-for-profit arts organization committed to restoring, stimulating, and sustaining quality arts education as an essential part of every child’s education.

I am here today to share our organization’s concerns with the Governor’s proposed budget and the impact it would have on arts and arts education in New York State. While we applaud the Governor for proactively addressing the state’s fiscal challenges, we urge the State Legislature to balance any cuts that might be necessary across sectors and not disproportionally distress New York’s arts and education sector.

The impact of the proposed cuts, especially those slated for the current fiscal year, would be felt not only by the myriad arts organizations across the state, the general public, and the state economy, but, perhaps most significantly, by public school children—many of whom are provided with little in the way of a state mandated arts education. For many, their only exposure to the arts and Arts Powered learning is provided by cultural partners to New York public schools.

The Governor proposed a $7 million cut to the current state arts budget and a $7 million cut to next year’s budget. This [is] on top of the 6 percent already cut from the Council’s budget a short time ago. As proposed, the cut to the current NYSCA budget could mean that almost 600 grantees in the October and December cycle would receive almost no funding. As we understand, a large portion of the grants for review in those two cycles were specifically for arts education initiatives. In essence, the cuts to the NYSCA budget by the Governor would lead to a “zeroing out” of arts education for many of the city and state’s school children in schools underserved in the arts.

From years of experience in New York City schools we know that good schools have the arts. From school trips to museums and concert performances, to visual arts and music and dance classes in the school—the benefits are incredibly rich and profound. Unfortunately, there are too many schools that do not have any arts programs—no arts teachers, no performances or field trips, no arts learning taking place.

Most schools probably fall somewhere in the low to the middle of the spectrum, but for those on the bottom end of the spectrum, the partnerships between cultural arts organizations, and the schools, many made possible through NYSCA funding, are vital. Schools are being forced to make difficult choices, and in many cases without outside revenue or partnerships—the arts provider simply disappears. And who suffers? Surely the artists who work in the schools—but even more so, the children.

Consider that in New York City 30 percent of schools do not have a single arts specialist. Last year, principals allocated a smaller percentage of their budgets to arts education than the previous year—shrinking to less than 2.9 percent on average. Principals also spent more than half a million dollars less on services by art and cultural partners—leading to additional cuts in matching private sector dollars. There was also a 63 percent decline in spending on arts supplies and equipment last year—a reduction of nearly $7 million. And this is just in New York City. It’s safe to assume that the arts have not fared much better around the state.

A cut to grant money to arts service providers, as proposed by the Governor, would truly be a double whammy for our city’s school children.

At The Center for Arts Education we use NYSCA funds, as do many arts and cultural organizations, to bring arts directly to these underserved schools and school children. The funds support our middle school initiative, helping to create exciting and sustainable arts programming in schools that have little or no arts education, and they support our work at PS37R in Staten Island, a special education school—where the arts are making a real impact for children on the autism spectrum, and our Principals Institute, where we are helping principals to help their students, creating an arts rich environment in their schools. All of these programs rely on funding provided through NYSCA.

The Center for Arts Education recognizes that the arts and education community will not be immune to budget cuts; however, we believe the current proposal disproportionately affects both of these critical sectors. We urge you to:

1) Significantly reduce the cuts proposed to arts/arts education grants;
2) Ensure that those arts grants slated for review by NYSCA in the final quarter of 2008 not be disproportionally subjected to any cut that takes place.

I thank you for your thoughtful consideration of these suggestions and the opportunity to testify today.