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State Budget Invests $600M in Arts Over 3 Years
California's arts community, which has been starved of meaningful state investment in the arts for the past two decades despite its importance to the creative and innovation economy, will now receive a pandemic-induced "shot in the arm" as the newly approved State budget invests $374 million in arts funding, programs and initiatives over three years, with another $237 million in one-time, mostly capital, expenditures for cultural facilities.
Highlights of the funding provisions include:
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$50 million to Go Biz for grants to small nonprofit performing arts orgs
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$150 million to California Office of the Small Business Advocate for live events venues
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$124 million to California Arts Council of which $40M is for Creative Youth Development, $60M for a California Creative Corps pilot program, and the remainder for local assistance programs
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$50 million to California Cultural and Historical Endowment for museum grants programs
Details of all of these programs will be released at a later date, although most of the funds are intended to cover a period of up to three fiscal years.
Of the one-time expenditures, Orange County designees include $2.75 million to the City of Fullerton for its Hunt Branch Library Revitalization Project, including program startup costs, and $500,000 to the City of Fullerton for the Museum of Teaching and Learning. Both of these appropriations were secured by Senator Josh Newman and Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva.
"We applaud the Legislature and the Governor for recognizing not only the critical needs of the field due to the sixteen month-long COVID-19 shutdown, but also the tremendous potential for economic stimulus, job growth and community service impacts from this kind of investment," commented ArtsOC President & CEO Rick Stein. "Although most of these funds are limited in term, they will have long-lasting impacts. Further, there are some portions of the funding that we believe will be ongoing, providing sustainability."
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