By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – New Hampshire is moving toward being the first in the nation to de-fund its public arts after the Senate Finance Committee voted Wednesday 5-3 to approve a $1 budget.
The NH State Council for the Arts, which distributes grant funding to support local theater groups across the state, often in amounts of $10,000 or more, is essentially gone by the action, said state Sen. David Watters, D-Dover, who opposed the measure along with Senators Cindy Rosenwald, D-Nashua, and Dan Innis, R-Bradford.
Rosenwald offered an amendment which would restore the funding that Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte had in her budget, which Watters said was “still a haircut” from current funding, essentially cutting it in half, but was not supported.
He proposed a 25-cent fee per ticket sold to help support the arts, but Chairman and state Sen. James Gray, R-Rochester, said it is too late in this session to do that, but could be considered as a bill next year.
Instead, an amendment offered by Sen. Tim Lang, R-Sanbornton, was to raise the amount of $1 to keep the Council on the Arts an entity, allowing for private investment into it.
That passed.
After the meeting, Commissioner of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources Sarah Stewart said the governor’s proposal would have allocated $500,000 a year which would be enough to get a match from the federal government and allow her to maintain her staff.
She said it is possible if this remains that she will have to lay off seven people on the staff. The council itself is made up of volunteers.
“I have to examine what the opportunities are to receive donations to support this,” she said.
After the meeting the governor said she was just made aware of the vote and did not support it.
“Certainly I support the arts and that was in my budget so we will certainly review what was done in the Senate committee but I have been very clear I do support the arts. I think it is really part of the culture of our state but it is also, as we think about our travel and tourism and attracting people to New Hampshire the arts are a part of our economic development as well,” Ayotte said.
Executive Councilor Joe Kenney, R-Wakefield, said he was furious with the vote to defund the arts. The council votes on those grants to help fund the arts.
“I’m really angry, actually,” he said. He said it is about economic development, particularly in the rural area he serves.
Kenney said the state needs to “encourage people to come to New Hampshire, go to a restaurant, to go to a theater, to stay overnight,” to help the economy. He said it means jobs, cultural support and financial advancement.
“It’s not even just being penny wise and pound foolish, it’s absolutely a disgrace that we don’t have an arts program,” he said.
He also said it is a bad look for the state to be the only one to not have state support for the arts and shared Stewart’s concern that once the funding is eliminated it will not likely ever come back.
He indicated he hoped people would organize and let the legislature know that this would be a bad decision.
Arts4NH issued a release after the vote.
“Arts4NH is deeply disheartened by the Senate Finance Committee’s recommendation to defund and eliminate the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts (NHSCA). This decision threatens to dismantle a vital institution that has supported New Hampshire’s cultural fabric since 1965.”