REAGAN PROPOSES 11.7% CUT IN ARTS ENDOWMENT

The White House announced Tuesday that President Reagan will propose an 11.7% reduction in the new fiscal 1986 budget for the National Endowment for the Arts.

The announcement came as White House spokesman Larry Speakes confirmed a New York Times report that the Administration will request an endowment budget of $144.5 million for fiscal 1986, which begins Oct. 1.

While the proposed new budget is $500,000 more than the Administration had recommended for the current fiscal year, it is less than the $163.7 million that Congress appropriated for the current fiscal year. President Reagan, who has vowed to reduce the federal deficit, plans to submit his proposals for a leaner budget to Congress on Feb. 4.

“I don’t look for any change,” Speakes said of the Administration’s plans for reductions for the National Endowment for the Arts.

According to reports, the main reductions proposed in the fiscal 1986 budget would be in the areas of opera, music and dance. The budget proposal calls for programs for opera and musical theater to be cut by 18.3% to $4.9 million; for music programs to be reduced 15% to $13 million and for dance programs to be cut 13.5% to $7.7 million.

An independent federal agency now celebrating its 20th anniversary, the endowment provides grants to individual artists and groups as well as to state and regional organizations involved in the arts.

A spokesman for the endowment said “we can’t discuss the 1986 budget figures until they are presented to the Congress.”

Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.), who authored legislation that created the National Endowment for the Arts in 1965, said he will oppose the reduction because it will create a financial crisis for many if not most of the nation’s cultural institutions.

“We have seen over the past few years that the private sector is unable to fill the gap created in cuts in federal support for the arts,” he said in a statement. “The arts and the public’s participation in them would suffer seriously were such a cut to be recommended.”

(In California, arts spokesmen showed little surprise, citing Reagan’s history of cutting arts budgets and his 1984 campaign warnings involving overall budget cuts.

(June Gutfleisch, executive director of the California Confederation of the Arts, suggested that an 11.7% budget cut would have “a serious impact” on arts organizations here but added that Rep. Sidney Yates (D-Ill.), chairman of the Appropriations Interior Subcommittee, usually “beefs up” the President’s recommendations.)

In his first year in office, Reagan proposed to sharply reduce the endowment’s budget to $88 million for fiscal 1982; Congress approved $143.5 million. In fiscal 1983, the Administration proposed $100.8 million; Congress approved $143.9 million. In fiscal 1984, the budget request was increased to $125 million; Congress gave the endowment $162 million. In fiscal 1985, the request was $143.9 and Congress approved $163.7 million.

Sources at the endowment pointed out, however, that the Administration’s requests for the independent arts agency have grown consistently every year. They also noted that the proposal for fiscal 1986 would still be an increase, albeit slight, in a year when deficit worries might even have included a decrease in budget proposals for the endowment.

What happens to the Administration’s newest request when it reaches Capitol Hill, however, is uncertain, depending on how the new Congress will deal with increasing pressure to cope with the nation’s staggering deficit.

While the White House revealed its proposals for the endowment’s budget, Charlton Heston, chairman of the endowment’s 20th-anniversary committee, announced that Nancy Reagan will become the committee’s honorary chairman. The committee is planning a yearlong celebration of the arts this year.

“We trust that the activities that we plan will substantially increase support for the arts in cities and states across the country,” Heston said.