Opinion
Published in Benefit Magazine, Jan/Feb 2007
You Get What You Pay For:
California trails the nation in arts funding
Assume you are an average California taxpayer,
sending 9% of your average annual income of $36,890 (12th highest
in the U.S.) to Sacramento for road repair, education, prisons, parks
and other programs. How much of this $3,320.10 would you want to
spend on the arts?
New Yorkers spend $2.35 per person, but that
isn’t the highest per capita funding in the country.
That accolade goes to Hawaiians, who spend $5.56. In
California, we spend just three cents each, the lowest per capita
funding for the arts in the entire country.
In 2003, the State’s General Fund budget
for the California Arts Council plummeted to $1.1 million and has
stayed at that level. Then Gov. Gray Davis and Sen. President
John Burton were persuaded to maintain at least $1 million or lose a
federal grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that required a
match from the state.
At its peak in 2001, funding for
the California Arts Council was $32 million, which provided for arts
organizations of all sizes and genres, as well as artists in schools,
jails and senior centers, arts touring programs, performance seasons,
festivals and exhibitions.
Thankfully, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the current legislature
have provided funds to revive arts and music in the schools, but their
generosity hasn’t yet reached the art programs that serve the general
public and create a sustainable path for our most creative people.
Indeed, the creative people are leaving. Add the
lack of affordable housing and studio space to the scarcity of paid
work for artists and the situation is untenable for emerging
artists. Mature artists who choose to stay are finding more
support and recognition outside the Bay Area.
For example, Idris Ackamoor, co-Artistic Director of
San Francisco’s Cultural Odyssey was recently on his way to Rio after
rehearsing a new piece with his partner, Rhodessa Jones, in Atlanta.
With close to $90,000 in CAC funding four years ago, Cultural Odyssey
provided after-school classes in jazz dance and tap for 50 kids in the
Western Addition. “Emergency Report,” the group’s signature youth
performance, provided kids with ways to express their fears, anger and
other raw emotions on stage, rather than in the streets.
But when the organization lost state funding, the board and staff
decided to eliminate the youth programs and concentrate on local
productions and national and international touring, where they could
find support. “We could no longer commit to a schedule at
home,” Ackamoor said, and the organization finds itself living its name.
Thanks to the
leadership of San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey, the California
State Sheriffs Association has asked the Governor to restore funding
for the California Arts Council. At a recent forum, Hennessey
explained that arts programs help maintain discipline inside the jails
by providing means of self-expression and positive role models, The
arts also offer opportunities for meaningful rehabilitation and reduce
recidivism of ex-offenders. Without such programs, California’s
recidivism rate is twice the national average, according to a recent
report in the Los Angeles Times.
Reviewing the situation in San Francisco’s Bayview
District, where clumps of hooded teenage boys stand around scowling on
many school mornings, District 10 Supervisor Sophie Maxwell rued the
lack of state support for the arts. “It’s a crime,” she
declared. A generation of young people is growing up without
knowledge of their innate creativity and their ability to contribute
positively to society. Maxwell initiated a resolution from
the League of California Cities supporting restoration of state arts
funding.
Citing statistics that a life of crime costs society between $1.7 and
$2.3 million, Sen.-elect Leland Yee and Assemblyman Mark Leno of San
Francisco have led recent efforts in the state legislature to restore
funding for the California Arts Council and reclaim California’s
national reputation as a leader in the arts.
California Lawyers for the Arts, in collaboration with California Arts
Advocates and the California Assembly of Local Arts Agencies, is asking
the Governor and legislature to provide just $1 per person for the arts
in next year’s budget, or $36 million, in order to restore the state’s
arts programs. For more information, visit
www.calawyersforthearts.org.
-Alma Robinson, executive director of California Lawyers for the Arts
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© 2007 California Lawyers for the Arts, all rights reserved.