Students at Baker Butler Elementary School do fun things in Nancy Kendall Williams’ second grade class. Last fall, Williams received a “Teacher Incentive” grant in the amount of $299 from the Virginia Commission for the Arts (VCA) for the 2007-2008 school year, a grant that Williams received previous years and used to fund field trips for her students to see The Nutcracker at Washington, D.C.’s Warner Theatre, or a troupe of Chinese acrobats at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Performing Arts Center.
|
In addition to funding local arts organizations, the Virginia Commission for the Arts “funds programs that contribute to our economy and our education system,” says Maggie Guggenheimer, executive director of Piedmont Council for the Arts. But in light of statewide budget reductions, VCA may struggle to bridge the gap between arts and education next year. |
During the same year, VCA approved $8,693 in grants for 29 teachers between Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville; the funds, according to Williams, give children “hands-on learning that is authentic.”
“This year, we’d hoped, and gotten our applications all ready,” said Williams. “And they cancelled them due to funding.”
Funding for VCA comes from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia General Assembly. In 1997, the General Assembly established the Virginia Arts Foundation Fund, an account outside of VCA’s general fund, which gathered money from income tax check-offs and the sale of “arts license plates,” and used the accrued interest to fund VCA’s grants.
“It’s not a tremendous amount,” said Peggy Baggett, executive director of VCA. “There’s about half a million dollars sitting in the fund right now. So we were going to get income of somewhere around $28,000 this year.”
However, as part of Governor Tim Kaine’s October 9 budget cuts, state funds for VCA were reduced by 15 percent, and the Virginia Arts Foundation fund has been frozen. According to Baggett, the commission anticipated the $28,000 while it determined the budget for 2008-2009; to deal with Kaine’s budget cuts, application deadlines and waiting lists were cut short and “Teacher Incentive” grants were eliminated altogether. The state’s general funds for Fiscal Years 2009 and 2010 are projected to drop from nearly $6.4 million to approximately $6.2 million.
“VCA is the only state agency that provides direct operating grants to organizations,” explained Maggie Guggenheimer, executive director of Piedmont Council for the Arts, who called the Commission’s grants the “bread and butter for over 200 arts organizations.”
“You can ask VCA for money to basically keep lights on and pay staff,” she added.
Itself a recipient of general operating funds from VCA, Piedmont Council for the Arts helps local arts organizations, like music education program Kid Pan Alley, find funding through the commission. From Inside Out, an arts education program for Central Virginia inmates, received a grant of $4,000 for 2008-2009 through Piedmont Council for the Arts. Other local organizations applied for and received grants, including the Music Resource Center ($20,300) and Light House Studio ($6,500).
In addition to funding arts organizations, Guggenheimer pointed out that “almost every organization that receives funding from VCA has programs that somehow relate to our school systems.”
“And where school systems are dealing with cuts in their funding for the arts, the organizations funded by VCA step in and close the gaps,” said Guggenheimer. Albemarle County School Superintendent Pam Moran, not immediately available for comment, issued a press release on December 17 to announce her funding request to the county School Board for the 2009-2010 school year. The press release does not identify the arts as an area of planned reductions but the request—which totals $149.1 million, a $2.2 million reduction from last year’s request—will “assume some reductions of non-classroom based services.”
Similar reductions during the next two years may bring about larger gaps between classrooms and the arts across the state. On December 17, Governor Kaine delivered his plans for “targeted, performance-based cuts” to deal with Virginia’s approximate $2.9 billion budget shortfall for fiscal years 2009 and 2010, Kaine singled out education as an area in need of a few changes, including a cap on funded support positions and the elimination of general support for school construction for projected savings of $367.5 million.
“The one area that has been held completely harmless in the first three rounds of expense cuts has been K through 12 education,” said Kaine. “…But the revenue reductions necessary for 2010 are big enough that we cannot ignore the single largest state expenditure in the budget.”
Coupled with the reduction in grants from VCA, Kaine’s proposed reductions don’t necessarily spell the end for an inventive, artistic classroom. However, it seems that artists and teachers may need to stretch a bit further to reach across the aisle to benefit students.
“The problem is that parents expect the same projects year to year,” said Williams. “But our classroom funds have been cut and, unfortunately, VCA is not able to fund our projects this year.”
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
