THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 22, 1994 TAG: 9411220017
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
Compared with other states, Virginia is stingy with funding for non-profit arts and cultural groups. The state's contribution per citizen comes to change, not dollars. But if Virginia's policymakers are troubled by that, they don't let on.
The tilt against arts and cultural subsidies is destined to persist - and worsen. But actress and arts-advocate Kitty Carlisle Hart, widow of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Moss Hart, last month exhorted representatives of a host of Hampton Roads arts and cultural organizations to speak up for their cause anyway, by lobbying state legislators vigorously for funding.
Partisans of arts and culture find themselves at the end of a long line of supplicants for tax funds - well behind education (lower and higher), Medicaid, prisons, mental-health services, low-income housing and sundry other programs addressing human-survival needs.
Arts and culture were the first casualties when the recent economic recession forced revenue-short governments to slash spending. Financially stressed state and local governments (along with the private sector) cut back arts funding. The upcoming Republican-controlled 104th Congress almost certainly will chop appropriations to the National Endowment for the Arts and public radio and television.
Buttonholing legislators may lessen such cuts. But odds are slim that Virginia's government, even with the improving economy, will find much cash for the arts anytime soon.
Still, the arts have as much right to lobby as anyone else. And the Hampton Roads arts and cultural communities has documented its contribution to the economy. Old Dominion University researchers, in a study last year for the Cultural Alliance of Greater Hampton Roads, calculated the direct and indirect economic impact of the arts in Hampton Roads to be $275 million annually.
The region is home to 300 arts and cultural groups. They provide more than 4,000 full-time and 2,000 part-time jobs. They annually pay $104 million in salaries, $4 million in state income and sales taxes, and $2.7 million in local taxes. The lion's share of what they spend comes from revenue gained from admissions and product sales; $21.8 million from private contributions of money, goods, services and time (from volunteers) - and $8.2 million in private-foundation and governmental grants.
Using a multiplier effect of $2.42 for each dollar of spending, the ODU researchers arrived at the $275 million impact.
Hampton Roads arts and cultural groups won't be shy about lobbying the General Assembly. But the temper of the times is inhospitable to such petitions. Meanwhile, the downsizing of U.S. businesses is shrinking private-sector giving.
Nonetheless, it is from the private sector that arts and cultural groups, employing ever greater energy, ingenuity and innovation, must seek their salvation. The challenge before them is the toughest they have faced for quite some time. by CNB