National Endowment for the Arts funding must stay in place

To the Editor:

We write as board members and staff of the Connecticut Arts Alliance and for the tens of thousands of Connecticut arts organizations and artists on whose behalf CAA works.

On Feb. 12, President Donald Trump released his FY 2019 budget request. His proposal includes the termination of our nation’s cultural grant-making agencies, including the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Last July, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a funding level of $145 million for the NEA, which represented a $5 million cut. In November, the Senate set the NEA’s funding level at $150 million for FY18, which is level with its current budget. As the funding process moves forward, we encourage our legislators to support no less than a funding level of $150 million for the NEA for FY18. We also ask them to support funding in the amount of $155 million for FY19 and to reject the president’s request to terminate the NEA.

The NEA is the single largest national funder of nonprofit arts in America. For more than 50 years, the NEA has expanded access to the arts for all Americans, awarding grants throughout all 50 states and U.S. Territories. NEA grants help leverage more than a 9 to 1 match in private charitable gifts and other state and local public funding. The NEA also has an exemplary partnership with the states, with 40 percent of program funds distributed through state arts agencies. In 2017, fourteen arts organizations in Connecticut directly received NEA funding, hundreds more indirectly benefitted from an NEA grant to the Connecticut Office of the Arts, and millions of our State’s citizens and out-of-state tourists have enjoyed NEAfunded programming.

With only a $150 million current annual budget, the NEA investments in the arts helps contribute to a $730 billion economic arts and culture economic industry, including 4.2 percent of the annual GDP and supporting 4.8 million jobs that yields a $26 billion trade surplus for the country. In Connecticut, the nonprofit arts and culture industry generates $797.3 million in annual economic activity in the state, supporting over 23,000 full-time equivalent jobs and generating $72.3 million in local and state government revenues.

We ask all supporters of the arts to contact their legislators to request their assurance that this work continues by supporting no less than $150 million for the NEA in the FY18 budget and $155 million in FY19.

Amy Wynn, Joshua Borenstein, Dartanian Reed, Frank Tavera, Diane Ploch, Elizabeth Fisk Barriser, Bob Burns, Wendy Bury, Eric

Dillner, David Fay, John F. Fisher, Daniel Fitzmaurice, Carrie Hammond, Calida Nicole

Jones, Dan McMahon, Frank Mitchell, Tracy Mozdzierz, Steve Sigel, Mike Stotts, Nancy Stula, Brett Thompson, JoAnne Torti,

Angela Whitford, Darren Farrington