Trump budget creates 'existential crisis' for Syracuse arts organizations
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| Syracuse Parks and Recreation's The Stan Colella All-Star Band performs in Clinton Square in 2014. The event was a part of the ArtsWeek in Downtown Syracuse's Jazz Up Your Lunch Series. (Michelle Gabel | mgabel@syracuse.com) |
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Local arts and education groups would lose out on hundreds of thousands of dollars if President Donald Trump's budget passes Congress.
Trump's proposed budget would eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Company for Public Broadcasting and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Together, those four agencies account for $1.02 billion in the federal budget, less than one percent of the total budget. Each channels money into Central New York's non-for-profit cultural and educational organizations.
In Syracuse, cutting the NEA would have the most visible impact.
CNY Jazz Central Executive Director Larry Luttinger said eliminating the NEA would create an "existential crisis" for local arts organizations like his.
"The overall domino effect from this action would be devastating," he said. "It's challenging enough running an arts organization in Central New York. We don't need a tsunami."
Over the last 10 years, the NEA has awarded more than $1 million to local organizations, including CNY Jazz, CNY Arts, the Erie Canal Museum, Light Work, the Everson Museum, Syracuse Stage, the Redhouse and Syracuse Opera, among others.
Additionally, about 40 percent of the NEA's funding is given to the states to dole out. The New York State Council on the Arts, which distributes money to local arts groups, received $751,675 last year. The Council supports things like the Everson Museum, the Onondaga Historical Association and the YMCA.
Light Work, a non-for-profit group that supports photographers, has been receiving NEA grants since the 1970s. They received $40,000 this year to support an artist-in-residency program.
Executive Director Jeffrey Hoone said the money is a small part of the organization's budget, but the grant is used to leverage other investment.
"Grants are done through peer review -- you're in competition across the country," he said. "When you get a grant, it means you've met certain standard of excellence. That's important in getting other funders to give money."
Hoone added that the money also demonstrates support of the arts, which "make life worth living."
Natalie Stetson is executive director of the Erie Canal Museum, which this year received a $60,000 NEA grant to present an Erie Canal documentary in cities along the canal, including a showing in Baldwinsville.
She said the money isn't part of the annual budget, but is used for special projects like the film -- things a small museum like hers could never afford otherwise.
Arts and culture program, she said, are always on the chopping block. Trump's recent proposal feels a little scarier, though.
"We're always asking not to cut our funding, probably since the NEA was founded," she said. "There was always a good deal of hope that representatives would listen to us. There's something in the air now that feels a little more real and a little more solid."
In all, Trump's budget would totally eliminate 19 agencies, including the NEA.
Some are well known, like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides money for television and radio networks, like Central New York's WRVO.
Others are less familiar, like the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
In addition to supporting museums like the Erie Canal Museum, the IMLS has given millions of dollars to Syracuse University's School of Information Studies to support research and education programs for students.
Dr. Ruth Small is Meredith Professor of Information Studies at the iSchool. She said she has received more than a dozen grants from IMLS since 2003. Those grants allow her to fund research projects with a national scope.
One such project created a database of thousands of lesson plans for teaching media literacy -- how to evaluate the authenticity of information, i.e. "fake news." Those plans are available to schools across the country for free. The iSchool maintains the database.
Small said the grants have partially or fully funded tuition and work for more than 100 students.
SU also receives less frequent grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Last year, the NEH awarded $50,400 to a Syracuse University professor to study the cultural impact of tea. Another group of professors is using a two-and-a-half-year, $29,879 grant from the NEH to create a digital cultural map of Onondaga Lake.
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