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Pennsylvania has now gone over seventy days without a state budget. This impasse is hurting nonprofit groups all over the Commonwealth, including arts organizations and arts service providers such as ArtsPath and The Lively Arts. You may have contacted your legislators before, but it is critically important for Pennsylvania’s arts patrons and those who are touched by the arts everyday to continue to keep members of the Pennsylvania House and Senate informed as to what the arts do in your communities. We need to be persistent in delivering the message that, as their constituents, funding at $14 million for the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA) grants program and at $1.2 million for the administration for the PCA is a priority.
Starting Wednesday, September 9, 2009, and continuing each Wednesday until a budget is passed, we are asking every citizen who cares about the arts to call or visit their legislators every Wednesday until the budget is adopted and the arts are fully funded. Ware are also asking organizations and municipalities who support the arts to make a symbolic gesture to draw attention to what our communities might be like if there is no state support of nonprofit arts groups.
Here are just a few ways the Indiana community and surrounding region will be affected if funding is not provided to the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts . . .
- We will be the only state in the U.S. without a state arts council, despite its being one of the most cost-efficient and cost-effective organizations of its kind and a model.
- ArtsPath, our arts-in-education program that brings the arts to thousands of school children each year and touting a highly successful nine-year history, will be totally eliminated.
- The Lively Arts at IUP, which provides a variety of touring artists throughout the year, would lose over $13,000 in support, causing a severe cutback in future programming and a rise in ticket prices for all ticket buyers.
- The loss is equivalent to between eight and ten jobs in our immediate region and hundreds across the state, which translates into a significant loss of revenues for the region’s businesses, a loss of tax revenue for the state, and an increased burden on the unemployment compensation system.
- Dozens of artists in the region whose income potential—relatively low as it is—will be significantly reduced.
- Comprising a five-county region, our area would stand to lose $153,927 in funding that was provided last year to thirty-four grant recipients, including local arts councils, Arts on the Allegheny, Blairsville Community Concert Band, local arts festivals, Indiana Art Association, Footlight Players, Punxsutawney Chamber of Commerce, Musical Theater Guild, Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance, and others.
- If the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts is eliminated, we will be unable to collect on literally millions of dollars in both federal stimulus money and increases budgeted for the National Endowment for the Arts.
How you can help . . .
