The State of Wisconsin’s Joint Finance Committee was likely the last best hope to defend funding and independent agency status for the Wisconsin Arts Board, which faces a 73 percent budget cut under Governor Walker’s budget proposal, and loss of independent agency status with a proposed move into the Tourism Board. But the committee voted yesterday to modify the cuts only slightly (adding contingent additional funding if a federal match requires it), and to adjust some of the authority and rules associated with executive leadership.
The vote was along party lines. Wisconsin Arts Board Chair, and former Lt. Governor, Barbara Lawton offers a play-by-play of the JFC discussion and decision in a letter to the community. Particularly deflating in Lawton’s letter is the complete lack of acknowledgment or voiced concern among the majority about the role and potential of creative and artistic investment in the economic or civic life of the state. Says she:
There was no motion to restore independence to the Board with adequate funding, no leadership or even commentary anywhere in the majority to speak to the critical nature of the arts and culture sector in Wisconsin’s economy.
The battle for Wisconsin’s public investment in creative enterprise, arts education, community cultural vitality, and civic expression isn’t over yet…the JFC’s recommendations for the entire budget will next move to the State’s assembly and senate. Although the Republican majority in both of those bodies seems unlikely to move toward significant change.
But the discussion and the decision is a striking blow to the idea that the arts encourage positive and dynamic connections within and among Wisconsin citizens, and that those connections are essential to its economic, civic, and creative future. Art, apparently, is for tourists.
