Arts Funding

Cutting arts funding is a quality-of-life issue The Inquirer editorial urging reconsideration of the proposed cuts to Philadelphia's cultural and arts organizations made a powerful argument based on the premise that the health and strength of these organizations is directly related to the city's economy ("Pay it forward," April 3). While this investment in the city's attractions that bring in major dollars to our economy ought to be sufficiently persuasive, there are two other arguments we should think about.

The original picture was dark and foreboding, with all state funding for arts, culture and history wiped out to help control a cavernous budget gap. Now the image is hazy, with Gov. McGreevey's administration backtracking by pledging to try to restore at least half of the $18 million in arts grants that had been cut and to help find other sources of money. "There's a commitment that we'll find the money," said Eric Shuffler, counselor to the governor. "We want to do what we can to keep them going.

The original picture was dark and foreboding, with all state funding for arts, culture and history wiped out to help control a cavernous budget gap. Now the image is hazy, with Gov. McGreevey's administration backtracking by pledging to try to restore at least half of $18 million in arts grants that had been cut and to help find other sources of money. "There's a commitment that we'll find the money," said Eric Shuffler, counselor to the governor. "We want to do what we can to keep them going.

New Jersey's nonprofit arts organizations took a few bows yesterday at the Statehouse following the announcement of a new study - the first of its kind here - detailing the strong impact of the arts industry on the state's economy. The report, sponsored by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the South Jersey Cultural Alliance, found that arts groups and their patrons spent an estimated $643,362,000 in 1993 - a full 60 times the amount of state money invested in the arts over the same period.

The $1.4 million Gov. Schweiker froze in state art grants seems like a small amount amid the more than $309 million held up in spending this year to cut the state budget deficit. But to Philadelphia-area arts and cultural groups such as Taller Puertorique?o, Rel?che Inc., and the American Poetry Review, the $1.4 million in cutbacks last month means staff cutbacks, bridge loans, and a lot of angst. "Who can go without pay this week?" Thaddeus A. Squire, artistic and executive director of contemporary classical music group Rel?che, said he had asked his musicians.

When Rocco Landesman, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, breezed through town early this month ("to learn," as an endowment press official put it), he heard a great deal about "siloing. " The arts can't "be siloed," said Jane Golden, head of the city's Mural Arts Program. It's important "to eliminate all the silos" that constrain thinking about arts funding, said Jeremy Nowak, head of the Reinvestment Fund, the nonprofit development organization that was one of Landesman's hosts.