The Big Ask

Once a year we have a conversation with the Governor’s Finance Office about our Vermont state appropriation.  We fill out forms, write a defense of our programs and services, and wait to be told—usually in December—what our “Governor’s Recommendation” will be for the next fiscal year.  From then on, until the end of the legislative session in May, we spend our time defending this recommendation from others who want to change it.  At least that is how it usually goes.

The conversation for next fiscal year has begun and already it is different.

We are asking for a $500,000 increase.

Our current appropriation is $507,607.  It has been exactly that for four years, which according to my colleagues in other states, is considered to be “a success,” given the recession.  However, from another perspective, it is NOT a success.  Our appropriation has been within 5% of $500,000 (sometimes higher but usually lower) since 1991.

In 1991 our state appropriation was $479,153.  If it had simply kept pace with inflation, our state appropriation today would be more than $810,000.  By staying put at $500,000, the appropriation has effectively reduced the Council’s capacity to serve the field more than $300,000 in this year alone.

It’s no wonder, then, that our constituents are feeling pinched.  We have helped to develop an arts sector that is among the finest of its type (given our population and resources), but are supporting it with 40% fewer grant dollars and technical resources than we had only 20 years ago.

There are several other reasons why the Vermont Arts Council needs an increase.  The first is that the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has significantly tightened up its matching requirements that allow states to fulfill their part of the State Arts Partnership Agreement (the contract that we sign on behalf of the state that releases Federal funds to support the arts in Vermont). Thus, next year, if the State of Vermont doesn’t match the NEA appropriation at least one-to-one, we stand to leave a quarter of a million dollars in Federal funding “on the table.”  This would be an actual cut, the size of which would be cataclysmic to the dozens of organizations, schools, and hundreds of artists whose projects benefit Vermont communities, educate our children, attract tourists, support several thousand employees, and in general improve the quality of our lives.

But since meeting the NEA match doesn’t address what we will actually DO with the money, the second reason is all about what the money would be used for.

In order of priority, here is what is needed:

1) A significant investment in practical (useful) ways to approach the appalling deficit in arts education funding in Vermont.  We believe that it makes little sense to talk about “developing a creative workforce” on one hand, while focusing on STEM or “The Common Core” (which at best ignore arts education programs) on the other.  The arts allow students to learn how to explore their own creative instincts in a structured, sequential, and collaborative way. If the 21^st century expects schools to churn out “creative workers” we have some serious catching up to do.  To start with, we will conduct a “status inventory” of learning in and through the arts in our preK-12 public school system.  This hasn’t been done for at least five years, and we have to find out what best practices are enabling some schools to thrive while others are abandoning the arts.

2) Related to this effort, we have to ensure that as many community arts organizations as possible are providing supplemental arts education activities to citizens in the communities they serve.  Starting with in-school and after-school arts programs and experiences, and continuing on with adult, senior, and underserved populations, community arts organizations frequently are considered the “glue” that holds a community together.  Again, a statewide inventory of “who is doing what” is an important starting point—an activity that has never been done.

3) Supplemental marketing and promotion for the arts sector.  In 2010 a study commissioned by Main Street Landing revealed that in 2008 artists, nonprofit arts organizations and their combined creative output resulted in nearly $19.5 million in state and local tax revenues.  It revealed a sector that employs nearly 6,400 Vermonters and accounts for a significant portion (as much as 10%) of total tourism-generated revenues.  What the study does not reveal is that this revenue is the “return” on a combined state and local investment of less than $3 million!

Anyone attending the Discover Jazz Festival, Music at Marlboro, the Made in Vermont tour, or visiting any of our dozens of visual arts attractions (from historic sites to museums and galleries), and “classic” 19^th century opera houses and town hall theaters from Derby Line to Wilmington, is familiar with the role that art and culture plays in the Vermont landscape.  What is exciting is how art and food culture is blending to turn farmers markets, harvest festivals, weekend farm stays, and ski vacations into true multicultural experiences.  The challenge is that so much is known about Vermont’s winter outdoor recreation, artisanal food production (especially cheese!), maple products, our famous fall foliage, and our growing reputation for micro-brews and niche wines, that carving out “bandwidth” to showcase the arts is getting harder and harder.

As the Vermont Arts Council starts the countdown on 50 years of public arts funding in Vermont, we believe there is a critical window of opportunity to showcase Vermont as being, among many other great things, an Amazing Arts Destination!  Not to sound like a broken record, but conducting an inventory of our cultural assets, county by county, town by town, is the first task that needs to occur.  Then organizing this information into a web- or app-based service that will allow residents and visitors to explore our dynamic state will become, finally, a reality.

Two of these priorities focus on preparing Vermont’s most vital cultural asset—our children—for survival in an increasingly competitive future.  The third priority focuses on responsibly developing a resource to attract and retain visitors and residents alike for years to come.  The first two priorities represent an opportunity to show how good government programs serve the people.  The third represents how government can, with a very small investment, develop huge returns for itself and local municipalities across the state.

So…here’s where YOU come in!

We have about 10 more days to let Governor Peter Shumlin and Administration Secretary Jeb Spaulding know how important this investment is to Vermont.  Please take a few minutes now to contact them and share your view about the need to support the Council’s request for increased funding.

It is VITAL that the budget the Governor presents to the Legislature in January includes a significant increase for our next fiscal year (starting in July 2013). 

I’ve provided you with a couple of key talking points, but to recap:

We need your help in asking the Governor to increase the Vermont Arts Council’s state appropriation to $1,007,507 (a $500,000 increase over the current level).  Doing so will

·  Allow us to match the NEA’s federal grant of $750,000

·  Invest resources in Vermont’s Creative Workforce by ensuring adequate access to arts instruction in our preK-12 schools throughout Vermont

·  Invest in our communities’ quality of life by ensuring adequate resources are available to the statewide network of cultural institutions that collaborate locally to improve economic opportunity and cultural/educational services to all populations

·  Invest in marketing and promotional campaigns that feature arts festivals, cultural attractions, and performance venues whose combined activity have significant tourist “ROI” for every dollar spent.

The Governor may be reached by contacting 802-828-3333.

Secretary Spaulding may be reached by calling 802-828-3322.

Governor Shumlin may be contacted here.

Secretary Spaulding may be contacted here. (click on his link)

Both of them may be reached by snail mail at

109 State Street

Montpelier, VT  05609

A phone call is better than a letter.  A letter is as good as a personalized email.  A “form” email (in which you simply cut and paste the above talking points) is better than nothing.

Have fun and thank you for helping us turn Vermont into THE State of the Arts!

p.s.  In case anyone asks, the Council has no expectation of increasing its staff beyond its current level.  Any increase to our appropriation resulting from this effort will be committed to the three areas described above.

Please feel free to subscribe to my blog by clicking in the box below my picture in the upper right corner of the page. And thanks to Vermont Arts Council's ArtMail for serving as a great bully pulpit!

An Open Letter to Kansas Governor Sam Brownback

May 25, 2011

The Honorable Sam Brownback

Governor of Kansas

Dear Governor Brownback,

I have been following with great interest your efforts to remove government support from the Kansas Arts Commission and to re-establish it as an independent, non-profit agency, with the expectation that doing so will relieve your administration of the responsibility of allocating taxpayer funds to match federal funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.  The budget now awaits your signature and there is a great deal of concern that you will use your line-item veto to effectively abolish the Commission which, I understand, a bipartisan coalition in the Kansas Senate representing a broad cross-section of Kansas citizens hopes you will not do.

It is neither my place nor my intention to engage in the political discourse of your state.  However, since our small agency has been frequently singled out by your administration as an example of a nonprofit state arts agency that is thriving without, as the media has reported it, the benefit of state investment I am compelled to weigh in and set the record straight on just three points.

First, in Vermont our nonprofit state arts agency is effective only BECAUSE there is significant state investment in our work.  Without a State appropriation of just over $500,000 we would be unable to provide the professional development services, educational outreach to underserved communities, accessibility services to hundreds of historic cultural venues that were built long before the passage of the ADA, and a host of other grants that support our creative sector.

Second, without State support we would be forced to raise more than half million dollars (to match our Federal grant from the National Endowment for the Arts) from the private sector—an activity that would put us in direct competition with the very cultural institutions that our mission requires us to support.  In addition, our largest grant program (Cultural Facilities), not only provides significant improvements to our historical and cultural institutions in the area of accessibility, the funds we award employ hundreds of carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers, electricians and other blue-collar workers that are, along with artists and teachers, the life-blood of our communities.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, every State SHOULD invest in the arts sector simply because it makes good economic sense.  One of our most conservative policy analysts looked at state and local tax revenues that flowed to state and municipal coffers from our very narrowly-defined arts sector in Vermont.  Income taxes paid by artists, arts administrators and independent arts contractors, as well as the long-established IMPLAN economic modeling analysis on just the nonprofit arts institutions in the state, reveal a total return of $19.45 million on a combined investment of $2.5 million, which includes our $500k appropriation.  This annual ROI of 775%  is even more astonishing since virtually all of Vermont’s state tourism dollars promote skiing, outdoor recreation, fall foliage, maple syrup, and artisanal food preparation and service, NOT art and culture—a circumstance which, I am happy to say, is going to change starting this summer.

Our legislature is getting more and more comfortable with thinking of the work we do as expanding the revenue base of our state, not increasing the expenses that our citizen taxpayers must bear.  Our sector provides good jobs.  It adds enormous social and civic value to our communities.  It improves the relationship that young people have with their schools and communities.  And it serves as a powerful attraction to entrepreneurs seeking to locate their new businesses in a creative, vital community setting.  The “creative economy” is real and it is thriving here in Vermont.  I believe that all these arguments are relevant to making the case for keeping the Kansas Arts Commission on sound financial, PUBLIC footing.

With great respect for you and for the wonderful citizens of Kansas, I am

Sincerely yours,

Alexander L. Aldrich

Executive Director

Vermont Arts Council

www.vermontartscouncil.org

www.artsupportsme.org

"Inspiring a Creative State..."

The Difference of a Dollar

On a recent trip to Washington DC I had to pause in front of a Metro card machine to decipher its instructions.  As I pulled several bills from my wallet I became aware of a soft-spoken man standing a few feet away, quietly intoning “45 cents, folks.  That’s all I need.  It’s not a hand out, I just need to get home and I don’t have the right change.  Spare 45 cents?  Anybody?  Please?...”

Having lived in most of the major cities on the eastern seaboard, I was not buying his act.  I had seen too many hustlers and homeless people looking for an easy mark, and this guy was perfectly positioned at a spot where out-of-towners are most likely to stand for a few minutes with money in their hands figuring out, like I was, how to buy a Metro card.

Perhaps a dozen people were in the vicinity, all doing what I was doing, and as we all finished our business with the machines, the man suddenly squatted next to his bag, facing away from us, lifted both hands up next to his ears and noiselessly started to shake them.  He realized that none of us were going to help him.  Still shaking, and in his own private world of humiliation and embarrassment, he emitted a quiet keening sound as I, with a fresh Metro card safely in hand, turned from the machine to head through the turnstiles.

In that moment I realized that whatever else might be going on, this man really was desperate.  He needed 45 cents.  His life had been reduced to this almost insignificant equation and the look on his face as he stared at his bag, shaking with fear, anger, and frustration pierced my detachment like nothing has in a long time.

The fairy tale ending to this story is, having given him some money, I proceed onto the Metro feeling virtuous and the guy purchases his ticket and makes it home in time for his daughter’s birthday party. 

Instead, I gave the guy a dollar, received his heartfelt thanks, got onto the Metro and experienced a tidal wave of anger.  I felt that the entire encounter was an allegory for the arts in this country.  The arts sector is the unknown man in the subway looking for legitimacy and support from his fellow travelers.  The arts sector is the unknown man in the subway with a bag full of ideas, of projects, of potential, all waiting to be realized.  The arts sector is the unknown man in the subway in need of a few pennies more to help reach a place that other travelers will only dream of.  The arts sector is the unknown man kneeling in the subway shaking with sorrow, fear, and a little rage at the indifference of society.

I shared this story with a friend.  He pointed out that the real lesson to be drawn from this encounter was that, in reality, someone (me) had intervened and bailed the guy out—a perfect lesson in current political theory.  Let things get desperate enough and the private sector will step up and save the day.

Except, I argued back, that in this case, it wasn’t the “private sector” that stepped up and saved the day; it was me—a public servant.  Moreover, it was a public servant who watched as literally dozens of “private sector citizens” walked past and ignored the man’s pleas; who took the extra moment to process the look on the man’s face; who gauged that one man’s private torment, internalized it, and who finally reached into his wallet to give the man a dollar.  Did I feel virtuous?  Heck no.

What’s going to happen to the next person who needs 45 cents if the public sector isn’t around?  How will she fare? And the person after her…?  And the one after him…?

We are going in the wrong direction. The public sector is being made out to be the enemy of progress. And the need for the arts and humanities (not to mention human services, medical care, and social security) is greater than ever.

And yet… the overpowering message coming from Washington DC still is to cut taxes and cut spending…to ignore the plight of the bereft man at the Metro card machine.

Pushing this allegory to its logical conclusion I considered how the unknown man in the subway who represents the arts sector will fare next year when he again lacks the 45 cents he needs to change the world. What can this man expect from the public sector, represented by National Endowment for the Arts?

About 40 cents. 

Whose helping hand will it be next time?