Artists, Orgs, And Lawmakers Seek Clearer Path To Arts Funding

There’s more money available from the state for the arts than there has been in a long time. But it’s hard for many arts organizations and artists who need it to get it.

State legislators want to do something about that.

That was a major takeaway from a Tuesday morning legislative roundtable on cultural equity and creative youth development, hosted by the Arts Council of Greater New Haven and the New Haven Pride Center.

The roundtable featured State Reps. Dorinda Borer (115th District), Robin Comey (102nd), Patricia Dillon (92nd), Josh Elliott (88), Kathy Kennedy (119th), John-Michael Parker (101st), and Mary Welander (104th), answering questions from attendees about the state of state-level arts funding. Other issues indcluded attending to the needs of disabled students, the digital divide, officially recognizing theLGBTQ+ community as a minority, and the long legislative effort required to make it easier for people to vote in Connecticut. (See the video embedded above for the full meeting.)

As Rep. Parker stated, the state government has allocated about $20 million for the arts in this fiscal year, with about $10 million to follow the next year. This comes on the heels of increased arts funding during the pandemic, including a $9 million arts relief fund set up in late 2020.

It’s all about six times the level of funding the state gave to the arts previously, according to Daniel Fitzmaurice, executive director of the Arts Council, who facilitated the meeting alongside Patrick Dunn of the Pride Center.

“Our state invests pretty substantially” in the arts, said Dunn. However, ​“the processes set up in the state” to disburse the funds — through the state-level Office of the Arts — ​“are not equitable processes.” Dunn pointed to the limited scope of the current avenues for funding, which excludes many arts organizations and individual artists.

There are ​“a couple things we’ve been looking at,” said Rep. Borer, who serves as co-chair of the state legislature’s arts caucus. First was ​“making sure that when there is funding available, as many folks as possible know about it.” Once the word’s out, legislators are also concerned about the challenges in applying for funding. 

“We hear feedback that it’s a cumbersome process,” Borer said. ​“How do we make that application a little easier?”

This concern applied not only to direct arts organizations, like Long Wharf Theater, but to arts education programs provided by schools and by arts nonprofits. ​”More than ever we’ll be addressing the needs of our neediest children,” said Rep. Kennedy. ​“The arts are so, so important to our youth.” 

Milda McClain, co-director of Music Haven, pointed out that her organization, which offers free music instruction to students, has received less support than some arts organizations, such as theaters, that are able to raise revenue themselves through ticket sales and other means. Rep. Welander suggested that in some cases organizations looking for more state funds could zero in on what exactly that funding would be needed for — say, transportation costs, curriculum development, or even a snack program — even as, later in the meeting, Fitzmaurice pointed to the need for arts programs to have more flexible institutional support. Unrestricted grants, he said, would ​“allow organizations to do their work,” with the state extending ​“the trust that organizations know what communities need.”

“We’ve been starting to do some great work in the legislature to look at long-term proposals for equitable funding,” Parker said, recognizing that, at the moment, ​“there’s not a great process for that.” First, he said, ​“we need to work toward is understanding our sector” — organizations large and small, the work individual artists do, and the many employment and educational benefits they all bring to the state — then move toward ​“freeing up the process” for how to direct funds. Parker wanted a ​“more equitable, fair, well-run process” and ability to provide more organizational support, ​“but I think it’s going to take us a couple of years.”

“I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of being reliant on grants from the state,” said Rep. Comey. ​“There’s a ton of red tape, and it’s gotten difficult to depend on consistent funding that, when you get it, the year is half over.… We need to improve processes at the state level. We’ve got to streamline this.” One possibility involved disbursing funds directly through line items in the state’s budget rather than through grant programs. ​“Line items are consistent and dependable,” Comey said, as opposed to grants, which take long enough to come through that organizations find themselves having to ​“backfill their coffers.”

As the state legislature is on the verge of beginning its next legislature session, the representatives present encouraged arts organizations and individual artists to contact them with ideas about how to improve the state’s ability to disburse arts funds. ​“We don’t always have all the answers,” Borer said. ​“We need to hear what the obstacles are and what the challenges are.”