Arts community sounds alarm: House budget wipes out funding 

The state House’s proposed budget for next year wipes out every cent of the $12.3 million the Michigan government spent on arts and cultural programs this year.  

The House also said no to the $2 million the Senate proposed for arts and culture facility upgrades, as well as the $220,000 each the Senate wanted to give to both the Black Leadership Council and the Tribal Commission for various arts and culture initiatives. 

Advocates are hoping the cuts are more virtue signaling than something the House Republicans are serious about pursuing, but the spending document has the arts community rattled. 

The University Musical Society fired off a press release late last week saying that if the House leaves the cuts in place, it would “decimate Michigan’s creative sector, threaten thousands of jobs, weaken local economies and strip communities of the programs and cultural resources they rely on.” 

The proposal came on top of a 35% cut by the U.S. House to the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, taking their funding down from the U.S. Senate’s proposed budget of more than $200 million to $135 million. 

Back to the state level, state Rep. Donavan McKinney, D-Detroit, may not be sitting on the subcommittee that oversees the arts this year, but he’s hearing that small-to medium-sized regional arts councils face closure if these government cuts go through. 

“It would have a detrimental impact on our communities,” McKinney said. “Arts and culture are one of the opportunities where people can come together and bridge that gap.  

“Republicans, Democrats, independents, it doesn’t matter — social status, economic status. No matter where you’re at, who you work for, arts bring people together. This is sad.” 

The current Michigan House minority vice chair on the budget panel that oversees arts funding, Rep. Jasper Martus, D-Flushing, said he was surprised. He didn’t see this cut coming, especially after an April 23 subcommittee meeting in which the Republican majority didn’t signal wholesale elimination of arts grants. 

Quite the contrary. 

Rep. Ron Robinson, R-Utica, sang the praises of Grand Rapids’ ArtPrize festival and arts projects in his hometown to Alison Watson of the Michigan Arts and Cultural Council. 

“For those naysayers who say, well, what does Michigan get out of these types of programs, I would invite them to ask anybody in Grand Rapids,” he said. “I’m a big fan of ArtPrize, and so I thank you for that.” 

“At first, I was afraid that Republicans were going to call the arts ‘waste, fraud and abuse,’” Martus said. “And then these Republicans all had positive things to say about the arts, and I remember thinking, ‘Who thought they’d be more pro-arts and culture than me?” 

That’s why Martus is wondering, are Republicans really willing to go to the wall with these cuts? Or is this an easy signal to their Republican base that they were weeding out “needless spending”?

Remember, Republicans claimed early in the budget process that they could find $3 billion in the existing state budget to create a permanent funding stream for roads without raising taxes and fees. 

Martus said he hopes that’s what this is. Now that the Republicans have made their point that they can find not only $3 billion in cuts, but $5 billion in cuts, they will be willing to come to the negotiating table and fold on things like arts funding for something that they really want. 

It’s not hard to see Martus’ point. For one, absent a serious budget crisis — as happened during the Great Recession — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Senate Democrats are not about to sign off on the full-scale elimination of arts and culture funding. 

But, outside of that, these grants touch all corners of the state, positively impacting the lives of folks of all stripes.  

Clearly, some Republican lawmakers don’t care, but with Michigan retaining its position as a purple state going into the midterms, Republicans can’t risk needlessly ticking off some key constituencies over a cut that shaves off a fraction of the amount they’re looking for. 

(Kyle Melinn is the editor of the Capitol news service MIRS. You can email him at melinnky@gmail.com.)