Arts groups paint bleak picture in light of budget proposal
Mayor Nutters spokesman said funding was agreed upon last year.
MEMBERS OF Philadelphia's arts community were singing, dancing and even playing the violin at City Hall yesterday - but they weren't celebrating.
Instead, they were trying to bring attention to the fact that Mayor Nutter's budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning July 1 contains a 40 percent reduction to the budget of the Philadelphia Cultural Fund.
The fund, a nonprofit corporation established by the city in 1991 to award city-funded grants to art organizations, is in line to receive $1.84 million for fiscal year 2016, or $1.3 million less than it received in the current-year budget of $3.14 million.
As the music of violinist Diane Monroe filled the second-floor hallway outside Nutter's office, mayoral spokesman Mark McDonald said the reduction in funding is not actually a cut. The fund's budget is going back to the level it received before this year, he told the Daily News.
"It was a one-year infusion that was done for the current fiscal year. It added $1.3 million for the Cultural Fund. In the five-year plan and budget that was adopted last year, it clearly showed that it was a one-year infusion," McDonald said.
"We were fortunate to be able to provide funds this past year which will help various institutions going forward, but it was a one-year thing, so it's not a cut," he said.
Lois Welk, interim executive director of the Cultural Fund, begged to differ. She said that if Nutter's budget proposal is adopted with $1.3 million less for her organization, that would result in grant amounts having to be cut deeply for the nearly 300 small arts groups that depend primarily on the funding, and it would lead to elimination of the fund's youth-art program.
She said she's hoping to persuade Nutter and City Council to keep her budget at $3.14 million.
"Once they really think about it, I think they will understand that this is a very good investment," she said.