This is an update to the news posted below last week about proposed NEA funding cuts.
On Tuesday, July 15, House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee chairman Rep. Ken Calvert (CA) returned to the committee with changes to the bill including a restoration of the proposed $8 million funding cut to the National Endowment for the Arts. If the bill is proposed by the committee, the next step would be to maintain the $146 million funding level in the full House.
Reported last week:
On July 9, 2014, U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert (CA), the new House Chairman of the Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, set the initial funding levels for the nation’s cultural agencies’ budgets for FY 2015. Unfortunately, the subcommittee has proposed a funding cut to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), decreasing funding by $8 million, or 5 percent, from the current funding level. This would set back NEA funding to pre-2008 levels. Forty percent of NEA’s grant funding goes directly to state agencies across the country to support state and local arts activities. Thus, reducing NEA funding will have a significant negative impact on the communities it serves.
At the least, funding the NEA at $155 million would be ideal. In particular, we look to the Senate to restore these proposed cuts and hopefully provide an increase to federal cultural agencies, including the NEA, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
–Catherina Hurlburt
