Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposed executive budget for fiscal year 2024 cuts funding for the New York State Council for the Arts (NYSCA) by $61.7 million from last year for a total of 48 million – $42.8 million in grant allocations and just over $5 million in operating costs. The governor’s office attributes the suggested 56.2% cut to the expiration of pandemic recovery assistance for arts and culture organizations in the state.
In 2023, NYSCA distributed over $90 million the equivalent of grants to more than 1,600 organizations. The Governor’s proposed budget, which must be approved by the State Legislature through April 1eliminates $1 million in NYSCA grants for small and medium arts organizations and cuts $50 million Stimulus Grant Program, which allowed NYSCA to allocate increased funding during the pandemic. The proposed executive budget also cuts $10 million from NYSCA’s capital funding, citing “no funding is provided for construction or rehabilitation projects for regional arts and culture councils outside the city. from New York”.
Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, who represents the 69th District, including Manhattan Valley, Morningside Heights and the Upper West Side, said Hyperallergic that the proposed cuts “would decimate the artistic landscape”.
“That’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard,” O’Donnell said. “Arts funding has a multiplier effect – if you spend $1 on the arts, $7 goes back to the state government.” Along with State Senator José Serrano, chairman of the Cultural Affairs, Tourism, Parks and Recreation Committee, O’Donnell is advocating for a $140 million NYSCA budget.
O’Donnell summoned Hochul $200 million tax credit program for commercial musical and theatrical productions, intended to help for-profit arts entities defray the cost of staging a play or performance. In contrast, he says, NYSCA was created to support the nonprofit arts community — where many of the most successful shows have originated.
“If you go to Broadway, the things you want to see, like strange loop Or hamilton, they all started in a non-profit theater,” O’Donnell said. “If you give money to an organization so it can survive, they hire a director, they hire actors, scouts, all these people get jobs.”
Assemblyman Tony Simone, who represents the 75th Assembly District covering Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen, Midtown and part of the Lincoln Center area in Manhattan, was among the advocates of a recent protest for arts funding at the New York State Capitol in Albany on March 21.
“NYSCA provides the funding that makes art accessible to everyone and allows artists to live and work in our city,” Simone said. 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.
A summary of the provisional budget for the financial year 2024 says NYSCA cuts are “primarily due to the expiration of pandemic relief,” one-time appropriations approved over the past two years to support nonprofit arts organizations whose various funding streams have been affected by COVID-19. According to O’Donnell, however, the governor’s proposal would not only remove interim relief, but also bring NYSCA’s budget back to “1980s levels.” For context, NYSCA’s budget in 1985 was $35.6 million. Funding peaked at $54.8 million in 1989 before drastic cuts took the budget to $28.2 million in 1991 under Governor Mario Cuomo’s program. highly criticized plan reduce the government deficit.
NYSCA’s suggested budget is only marginally higher than it was in 2019, especially taking inflation into account. The FY2019 Executive Budget allocated total funding of $46.9 million to NYSCA, just over $1 million less than the current proposal of $48 million.
In response to HyperallergicIn its request for comment, a representative from Governor Hochul’s office said the proposed budget “makes transformative investments to make New York City more affordable, livable and safer.” Hochul “will continue to work with the legislature to deliver a final budget that meets the needs of all New Yorkers,” the spokesperson added.
