FUNDING CUTS

The State of Michigan has declared a moratorium on payments of its arts grants through the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs. These are grants already awarded for the current year and already built into our budget.  
 
This is bad news for our state and our city. As we struggle to reinvent our state and its economy, there is one thing we know: the future economy will be based on creativity and innovation. In its report “A New Agenda for a New Michigan,” issued last spring, Michigan Future, Inc. concluded that, “Quite simply, in a knowledge-driven and entrepreneurial economy, the places with the greatest concentration of talent win…Our agenda to help better position Michigan and its regions to succeed in a knowledge-driven economy is centered on 1) developing a culture and 2) making key public investments that are aimed at preparing, retaining and attracting talent.” Eliminating funding for the arts at this crucial time demonstrates a lack of civic vision and will damage our efforts to recruit new companies and new talent.

At the Michigan Theater this means that nearly $42,000 has been pulled out from under us. We are in the process of making cuts in our programs and activities to deal with this crisis. We have decided to publish our monthly newsletter only six times a year, effective immediately, and to eliminate our CinemaSlam program altogether. Additional staffing cuts are being evaluated.

 

THE STATEWIDE PICTURE

Michigan is facing a defining moment. In the next weeks and months, we will find out that our citizens and the elected officials who represent them understand that reinventing Michigan and its economy is a MUST for our survival. Or we will discover that the rhetoric of reinvention, the creative economy, human capital, innovation and entrepreneurship means nothing, in which case, Michigan will continue its steady decline.

The Governor’s decision to put a moratorium on $7.5 million in state grants promised to arts and cultural organizations of all sizes and throughout Michigan coupled with the Senate proposal to cut the funding for those grants by $3.6 million in the current fiscal year demonstrate a lack of understanding about the essential role that the arts sector plays in our economy. In difficult times we must all tighten our belts, but this has already happened in the arts community.  Since 2002, arts funding has been cut 60% -- Michigan has fallen from 4th in the nation in arts funding to 35th -- the belt cannot be cinched tighter without inducing strangulation.  

 

THE BOTTOM LINE

As part of a healthy human ecosystem, Michigan MUST have a strong, diverse and vibrant arts and cultural sector in order to create a quality of life that will retain and attract the workforce, the businesses, the entrepreneurs and visitors we need to survive and thrive in the New Economy. Consequently, we need to collectively take a stand that continued disinvestment in Michigan’s arts and cultural sector is unacceptable and damaging to Michigan’s future.

 

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

1. Contact your legislators and tell them how you feel about the cuts in arts and culture funding. Contact info is available at http://capwiz.com/artsusa/mi/state/main/?state=MI

2. Encourage your friends and family to contact their legislators, particularly those in districts represented by opponents of arts funding.

ArtServe Michigan ( www.artservemichigan.org ) has developed a 4-point request to legislators:

• End the current moratorium on state grants to arts and cultural organizations.
• No cuts for the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs in the current fiscal year (2007).
• At least a $1 million incremental increase in fiscal year 2008 to begin restoring funding to past levels for arts and cultural grants.
• Stable and adequate funding for arts education and arts educators.

3.  Consider making a donation (or an additional donation) to the Michigan Theater to help alleviate our budget gap. Our emergency cuts will eliminate over half of the $42,000 that we are losing. Please help us make up the other $20,000. To donate to the Michigan Theater, please visit our donations page, which has instructions for donating both online and off.

 

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR CONCERN FOR THE MICHIGAN THEATER AND THE ARTS!