New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposed $227 billion state budget for fiscal year 2024, released last month and due for approval by April 1, includes deep funding cuts Arts. As part of its budget proposal, funding for the New York State Arts Council (NYSCA) would be cut by more than half, from $109.7 million to $48 million.
An analysis prepared by the governor’s office points to the deep reduction in “the expiration of one-time appropriations for pandemic recovery assistance,” but some state politicians are calling for a sustained increase in funding even as the worst impacts of Covid-19 recede. According to State Assemblyman Danny O’Donnell, whose district includes parts of the Upper West Side, Harlem and Morningside Heights, and who chairs the New York Assembly Committee on the tourism, parks, arts and sports development, every dollar of arts funding sends $7 into the economy of the surrounding community. He advocates increasing NYSCA’s funding to $150 million.
“Four years ago when I became chairman of this committee, people thought I was crazy,” he recently said. capital tonight. “But the reality is, where I live, many, many people make their living in the arts. And by spending on the arts, we actually nurture communities.
Raising New York State-level arts funding to $150 million would put it in the same league as the largest government arts funders in the United States, the National Endowment for the Arts (whose 2023 budget was $207 million after a $27 million increase) and New York City of York Department of Cultural Affairs – $155 million in 2023, after a reduction of $78.1 million from 2022.
“NYSCA provides the funding that makes art accessible to everyone and allows artists to live and work in our city,” said State Deputy Tony Simone, whose district includes parts of Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen and the Upper West Side. Hyperallergic. “We should be supporting the arts more, not less, and my colleagues and I in the Assembly are fighting to keep this important funding in this year’s budget.
