MOST IN ARTS APPROVE OF NEW BUDGET

State arts leaders have in general reacted favorably to the new $14.5-million budget for the California Arts Council, applauding Gov. George Deukmejian for approving a $1-million increase, even though he trimmed away about twice that amount in spending requests.

Seven days into fiscal year 1987-88, the governor on Tuesday signed into law the council’s new budget of $14,509,000 (which includes about $1 million in federal funds). The new budget represents a 7.4% increase over last year’s $13,499,600 arts allowance.

“While we didn’t get all the funding we needed,” said Sen. Henry J. Mello (D-Watsonville), chairman of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Arts, “I applaud the governor for taking this step in the right direction.”

Francis L. Dale, president of the Music Center of Los Angeles, said, “We’re always disappointed that (the arts community) didn’t get as much as we’d like, but any increase is sorely needed and gratefully received.”

Susan Hoffman, director of the California Confederation of the Arts, the state’s arts advocacy organization, said the $1-million budget increase “at least says to me that the governor is listening to the needs of the arts.”

During June, as Deukmejian prepared to sign the new budget, Hoffman said “things were pretty desperate around the state capital, given the incredible appeals for increased funding for education, AIDS research and other needs of the state. In that context, I think the arts have done quite well.”

In fiscal 1986-87, Deukmejian increased the council’s budget by $648,000 after the Democrat-controlled Legislature and the California Confederation of the Arts requested $983,000 in new funds. This year, the legislature and the confederation asked for a $2.9-million increase.

Though Deukmejian did not grant the council everything that was requested, Mello was encouraged.

“The governor’s action is a clear signal that raising the level of Arts Council funding is a priority, a high priority,” he said. Under the current restrictions of the Gann Limit, a 1975 initiative that placed a ceiling on state spending, he said, “only high priorities will be receiving new funding.”

However, Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) was not as pleased as some of her colleagues because Deukmejian blue-penciled a legislative proposal that would have earmarked $500,000 of any budget increase for the Arts Council’s multicultural (ethnic minority) grant program. The program received $500,000 last year.

“I’m picking myself up off the floor,” said Waters, chairwoman of the Assembly way and means subcommittee that handles the arts budget.

“The governor took away my language that would have designated $500,000 for multicultural artists to try to get them into some real participation in the state. . . . Yes, he raised the budget by $1 million, but I think he has not been as kind as he could have been to the arts.”

Arts Council member Consuelo Santos-Killins echoed Waters’ objection. “Considering the governor’s concerns about multicultural groups and their future growth in California,” she said, “it was inappropriate for him not to increase the multicultural budget as requested and as so desperately needed right now.”

Council Director Robert H. Reid said Deukmejian eliminated the Legislature’s stipulation because “it would not have been responsible to add half our $1 million augmentation” to a single program. The council will still add $100,000 from the new budget to the multicultural program, he said.

Reid also said the new budget will enable the council to award its first grants to individual artists without draining funds from other programs. The new budget includes $200,000 that the council will use early next year to award $5,000 fellowships to 40 artists, he said.

It also ensures that the council can award its first grants in its two-year-old folk arts program, Reid said. Providing that the council is given a three-year $75,000 grant from the Skaggs Foundation (which invited the council to apply for the gift), the council will award a total of $25,000 in grants to an undetermined number of folk artists in 1988.

The new budget also includes $50,000 for a new council staff member, Reid added.

“I did not expect to get this large a budget augmentation,” Reid admitted. “But I’d like to think it is because the governor has confidence in his new council,” referring to the fact that as of this year, nine of the council’s 11 members, including Reid, are Deukmejian appointees.

“He’s got his team in place and I think that makes a difference,” Reid said.