It has come to our attention at Sam Flax that the phrase ‘supported by the Georgia Council for the Arts (GCA) may soon cease to follow Atlanta’s National Public Radio(NPR) announcements if the $17.8 billion budget passed by the House Appropriations Committee passes the Senate. In the coming days, the Senate will vote to pass the 2011 budget, which nearly eliminates all major funding of the GCA, to Governor Sonny Perdue for approval.
Over the years I have really grown attached to hearing that line following my favorite NPR programs, but I had no idea how much the GCA actually does for Georgia. Since 1968, they have been funding programs for everyone from the High Museum of Art down to the smallest county cultural presentations in Georgia.
It seems like a short sighted decision to eliminate the GCA and therefore forego over $800,000 in funding from the National Endowment of the Arts as well as $200,000 in regional arts funding. It’s difficult to understand why legislators would like to make Georgia the only state that is ineligible for national funding.
A proposed piece of legislation, HB1049, would actually help fund arts programs at the county level if approved but it doesn’t seem to be getting much attention from legislators here at the end of the session. That bill proposes allowing counties to hold referendums to determine if residents would like to allocate up to a penny of their sales tax to funding arts and cultural programs. We still wouldn’t have a central arts council, and we still wouldn’t receive national funding but we might be able to keep some of the programs that counties currently sponsor.
As an art and design store, our business depends upon a thriving arts community. Many of our clients have made use of funding from the GCA; the GCA is also a client. In that respect we are an example of how public funding translates into commerce. The GCA estimates that the 1.3 million or so dollars they use for funding has an economic impact of $387 million dollars in Georgia, which is quite a return on investment.
Organizations like The Center for Puppetry Arts may struggle without this great source of funding. Private donors will need to increase amounts given to these organizations significantly in order to help. Still, the hardest thing to watch will be children, missing out on opportunities to discover the arts through publicly funded programs that will continue to exist in every other US state. Corporate funding does not often benefit these and the many smaller community programs in Georgia.
If you would like to talk to a legislator about the issue try these guys:
Rep. Ben Harbin, R, 118th
404-463-2247/706-869-1953
Rep. Jerry Keen, R, 179th
404-656-5052/912-634-3773
Rep. Jan Jones, R, 46th
404-656-5072
Sen. Jack Hill, R, 4th
404-656-5038/912-526-7444
Sen. Tommie Williams, R, 19th
404-656-0089/912-526-7444
Sen. Chip Rogers, R, 21st
404-463-1378/770-516-0543
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