Dustin Parker
FARM GIRLS FROM KANSAS
Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed an executive order this week eliminating the Kansas Arts Commission. The state is facing a nearly $500 million budget shortfall. Abolishing the Arts Commission will save almost $600,000 a year, or .12 percent of that gap.
In other words, about a tenth of one percent. The Kansas legislature can vote to overturn the order within 60 days. Otherwise, it's set to take effect on July 1. For now, from the looks of their website, anyway, the Kansas Arts Commission still thinks of this as a fight. They're making a fiscal argument:
This move jeopardizes:
- $778,200 in direct funding from the National Endowment for the Arts
- $437,767 in indirect grants and services from Mid-America Arts Alliance, the Kansas Arts Commission's regional partner
To stop this and retain the Kansas Arts Commission, one of the state's most successful agencies, a resolution must be passed by Kansas House or Senate legislative bodies.
Contact your legislators NOW to tell them to maintain the Kansas Arts Commission as a state agency and to keep funding at the current level.
The commission tells us the Kansas Governor's Arts Award gala for March 3 is still on.
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The Arts Commission is to be replaced with a nonprofit "Arts Foundation" that will seek private donations. No doubt those donations, if they come in at all, will in large part be restricted to art the donor thinks is "appropriate".
Oh goody, we can look forward to art that rich Kansans like. Maybe they can pass the hat at their Arts Award gala.
Maybe they can put a statue of Lee Greenwood in their state Capitol. :-/
The problem is that the governor has appointed a 'board' to run the new Non-profit...and the few names that have come to light are his Christianist cronies. So...no government money, but government control by means of governor appointments.
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Okay, I know that this isn't going to be popular. For those of you who haven't read my comments, you might think I'm some kind of far right wing Republican. I assure you I'm not.
I personally don't think the government should supplement art other than in schools, at least not right now when we're so far in the red. We have to cut the budget somewhere. And I realize, as the post said, that this is a tiny, tiny part of the budget. But even drops in the bucket can eventually add up to a full bucket. If given a choice, I would much rather cut something like the KC Arts Commission than cut Medicare or other social safety net programs. I know, that's cold. Maybe after the government is solvent once again and on stable ground financially we can reinstate things like this. But right now, when things are so tight, the arts are perhaps better funded by private individuals.
The problem is that Arts Commissions generally are the only ones promoting art in schools in the first place- with legislators pushing things like No Child Left Behind, most school boards are quick to cut art and music programs to make room for extra "study prep" to teach students how to take a bubble test (anyone who knows child development knows this is doomed to failure- see Gardner's Multiple Intelligences research to see why).
Even contemporary artwork is easily made into a teaching tool (see the VTS program from MoMA to see some of it in action). Arts Commissions usually only have a tiny operating budget, which do little to nothing on affecting the bottom line compared to other more efficient cuts.
Cutting out Arts Commissions leads down a slippery slope as well- why then should museums be public? Perhaps we should sell public parks as well.
I don't see any good coming of this.
I see your point. And perhaps the legislation for these cuts should read so that the funding must be reinstated as soon as the government is back in the black. As for art programs in schools, I think that's an education funding issue.
Nobody wants to cut programs. But when it comes down to it, I'd prefer to temporarily cut something like this than cut other, more vital, programs.
Actually, I think many right-wingers do want to cut programs. Right after cutting social programs they dearly want to cut art programs. The first to prove they have to hearts and the second to prove they have no souls.
I'd concur with you Monk. I guess when I was referring to "nobody" I meant Democrats and the general public.
If they really wanted to help the budget they could start by collecting sales tax on lottery tickets - Kansas LOSES $14 MILLION a year on that gem. Then there is the exemption on "stripper wells" that was instituted back when oil was $9 a barrel. Still in place while it inches towards $100 a barrel. Kansas is being ravaged.
Okay....so you're proposing a 14 million cut instead of a 700 million cut. Where are you going to cut the other 686 million from? And that's still a drop in the bucket. Where are all the other drops coming from?
I know people hate cuts. But they have to be made. If the Arts Council is sacred, where can we cut from? Because if the Arts Council is uncut-able, then what does that make other, more vital social programs?
The money has to come from somewhere. This is going to mean deep, painful cuts and significant tax increases. Bottom line, the states and the country as a whole can't continue with the "onwards and upwards" approach to the deficit. Eventually, it'll crash and then the whole safety net goes. All of it.
You write as someone who doesn't understand how the arts are funded. I'm sure you mean well, but you are seeing a mythical world. The private donors in rural areas are tapped out!! yet don't their children and their communities still deserve the arts? The whole idea of Government funding is to be able to spread it around where needed, and the State Arts Commissions are highly effective at this. Otherwise every area is dependent on having some rich person bestow largesse on schools and organizations to keep the arts there.
The Governor's fiscal argument is phoney. In Kansas, you will still be sending your federal tax dollars to the arts, but that money will now go to other states to help their children.
So keep the Arts Commission as an institution, just fund it with private donors, and write the legislation so that federal funds can still be matched to private donations. The Commission can still dole out funds as they see fit. Bottom line, the point I have been arguing over and over and which nobody has suggested a solution to: something has to be cut.
You don't want the Arts Commission funding cut. Then what would you suggest? Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security, all of which keep people from starving? Or what about general education, in the core areas? What about transportation and infrastructure?
As for your comment about a "mythical world" I would say the real myth is that state and federal governments can continue operating in the red indefinitely, paying out zillions in interest. As much as it turns my stomach to say it, the Tea Party is right about one thing (even if it is only one): We have to do something about deficits, both at state and federal levels.
CoraH
Yeah, I'm sure arts funding will be one of the first things a future Republican admin will put at the top of their priorities.
When I was 16 I had the opportunity to take part in a state-funded summer art school in Pennsylvania. It changed my life and that of probably everyone else who participated. That program, called the Governor's School for the Arts, was recently axed for the same reasons the state of Kansas is planning to eliminate the Arts Commission.
I don't really understand why the majority believe programs like this are expendable. One good argument for why arts funding is essential can be found in a recent documentary, Thunder Soul.
Arc,
I get that the arts are important. I am involved in music and pottery. My family is a very musical and my brother teaches orchestra up in St. Louis.
I know how much good camps like the one you attended can do, especially for underprivileged youth. But when you have to choose something to cut from the budget, in order to protect the programs that keep people from literally starving in the street, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, it means that you have to sacrifice those programs which do a lot of good but aren't vital to keeping people out of Dickensian situations.
I think when the government is preparing to slash something like that, they should give a year or two's notice to give the directors a chance to fund raise and find private sponsors and hopefully keep the programs going, but ultimately, something has to go. And it sucks that Arts are usually the first thing cut, but on Maslow's hierarchy, they're towards the top, not the bottom.
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This has been discussed in Kansas for a while. In mid-January, I sent this email to the Governor and the appropriate state legislators (although I doubt it will do any good in the current state legislature) :
I have lived in Lawrence, Kansas for the past 35 years (I'm 38 now). Lawrence has a history supporting a diverse and prolific arts community. I feel that I am a more intelligent and more cosmopolitan adult because of the thriving arts community. Eliminating the Kansas Arts Commission will have a dramatic and negative impact on youth today and deny them the opportunities I had as a child.
As an adult, I am involved in the family-owned business, which supplies art materials to individual artists, schools, and arts organizations in this region. My business has 10 employees who make more than a living wage and provides health care to those employees. My business and my employees would also be directly and negatively impacted by the elimination of the Kansas Arts Commission.
As a business that serves artists, we have several hundred artists that come to Lawrence each year to pick up their supplies from our business (a great percentage visit several times a year), many from out-of-town. They eat lunch or dinner while they're in Lawrence. Sometimes they stay overnight at one of our hotels. Many times they shop in the Lawrence community after stopping by our store to buy things. They sell their art through galleries in Lawrence. The Lawrence business community would be directly and negatively impacted by the elimination of the Kansas Arts Commission.
And as a business that sells things to the public, we collect sales tax. Because many of our customers are from out-of-state, when they come to our business and buy things, they pay the state and county sales tax (we are located out of city limits). These are out-of-state customers that wouldn't contribute to the Kansas sales tax revenues if we relocate or switch to a business without a brick-and-mortar storefront. Without the Kansas Arts Commission supporting a robust arts environment, there is a direct and negative impact on the sales tax revenues for the county and the state.
Please do not support the elimination of the Kansas Arts Commission as a state agency – it is not in the best interest of the communities that you represent and is not in the best interest of the state of Kansas.
Great post, Anne.
I am part of a group organizing a rally opposing the cuts this Thursday. If you live in Kansas, you are invited to join us on Thursday, from noon to 1pm, in front of the Judicial Center in downtown Topeka. This cut hurts the culture of Kansas, and will lose the state millions of dollars both in matching funds and revenue from projects the KAC supports.
Kansas is a silly place, sometimes I can't understand how I am half as normal as I am.
Brownback is a tool of Club for Growth types that want everyone to bow down to the mighty corporation -- Koch Bros, for example. Kill government funding for anything and make people come crawling to their masters. That's the bottom line of what's happening. USA, this is coming your way, Kansas is only the tip of the iceberg. Mark my words.
I am, as some already know, a (mostly) conservative republican. Generally, I do not support the government's financial support of the arts (or public radio or tv) but I have to say that there is some value to it and I am not as against it as I once was. I have friends in Germany who are both artists and have done a lot of work on public projects - their entire careers thus far - and the work they do is wonderful and makes life in public places that much better and less gray. I will say that if things have to get cut, that is probably the place you have to start but if there is money to be spent on making a place better to live, public support of art is not a bad thing. I also think there should be a lot more taught in school about art history and the various arts.
I think the biggest upset is with the relationship art has to creativity and to productivity. People who do the best on things like SATs and the ACTs tend to be people involved in art in some fashion. Engineers, just as an example, tend to first be turned on to the creative aspects of their brain via art before they ever learn of "The Knack." Artistic thinking causes a person to question one's own reality and that leads to better decision making. The ability to "think outside of the box" can be traced to one's exposure to art in any form. Most companies out there, according to my philosophy professor anyways, would argue that to have an employee capable of independent thought and an employee with an imagination is much more valuable than an employee who can regurgitate information on demand. According to my old employer the reason why American employees are more desirable than employees around the world stems from our greater ability to reason and to be creative. That employer could've outsourced it's call centers to other countries, but the company did not as a rule (unfortunately the company I worked for no longer exists, but that's another story). The reason why, according to my old boss, was because countries like India and what not do not train people to be able to think (if you get my meaning), but train workers to be able to regurgitate. One leads to new ideas, new ways of operating, better efficacy, and better productivity. The other leads to suicides (again using my bosses reasoning). I think this is why liberals get defensive about art funding; this, at the very least, is why I personally get upset about art funding.
THANK YOU FOR FOCUSING A LIGHT ON KANSAS...people need to know that if they elect crazy ass people, crazy stuff happens. The dismissal of the Arts Commission is a huge mistake. How on earth will we ever encourage new businesses to settle here if their employees don't have any reason to live here???
As Artistic Director of one of the leading Rural Arts Organizations in the country, our programs are highly dependent on the Kansas Arts Commission. This will be a devastating blow to many rural communities whose sole access to arts programming is through KAC sponsored programs. This is incredibly stupid from a financial point of view. The state leverages about one-and-a-half times the money it invests through Federal and regional matches. If we don't receive that money, then the taxpayers in kansas are giving money to the Federal Government for almost no return!!!
Additionally the small grants to rural organizations leverage an enormous amount of local support and volunteerism.
Aside from the religiously idealogical culture warrior aspect of this attack on the arts. This idiotic move will cost Kansas financially in so many ways. There are many budget cuts that don't affect federal matching dollars.
Governor Brownback appears to be coining a new Kansas motto: "Kansas, no place to live!"
I am a Kansas native and plan to live her my entire life if I can. I am also a lover and creator of the fine arts. I currently work in a call center because I can't find work in my arts degree field. Kansas has a long tradition of local artists and support for those artists has come from things like the National Endowment for the arts and the Kansas Arts Commission. I don't always agree that what they commission is traditionally beautiful; but that is not the point of art.
I personally plan to fight this as much as I can. I have grown up watching people strip more and more funds away from the arts to make way for tax breaks for the rich corporations and individuals in this country that are trying to define what art is. Art is an expression of what we are as humans; the human condition in a way that changes the way we communicate with each other.
If this continues I fear our society will fall in to the same trap that prior cultures had. Losing self expression and free thought to the ever gaping maw of greed. Thankfully there are so many selfless people out there that donate to causes and enjoy the free expression in spite of the actions of a few closed minded politicians.
Sam Brownback, card carrying member of the Family; the worst thing to happen to Kansas since we lost Kathleen Sebelius.