Arts Agencies Get Bigger Slice of Budget Pie : Arts funds: President Bush’s spending package shows that the federal dollar drought could be over. Analysts see the increases as a significant policy statement.

The federal government’s four major national cultural agencies found indications in President Bush’s fiscal 1991 budget proposal that a decade-long drought in arts and humanities funding may have started to abate.

Bush’s budget plan, unveiled Monday, showed a total of $623.6 million earmarked for operating funds for the four cultural agencies--a 5.1% increase over the 1990 budget submitted to Congress by former President Ronald Reagan. The amount is included in the $1.23 trillion in overall spending Bush proposed. Specifically for the arts and humanities, the total includes:

* $175 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, up from $171.25 million this year and the arts endowment’s first true budget increase--after allowances for the effect of inflation--in 10 years. The endowment figure includes a $2-million increase earmarked for its arts education programs.

* $165 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities, up from $156.9 million this year. The extra money is earmarked for its programs in humanities education, research and preservation.

* $259.6 million in operating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, up from the $242.1 million Reagan requested before he left office and more than $8 million above the $251 million Congress actually appropriated. Bush proposed a separate amount of $46.9 million for the corporation’s satellite replacement fund--a program for which Reagan proposed no funds last year. Congress eventually appropriated $76.3 million for the satellite program, anyway.

* $24 million for the Institute of Museum Services, up from $22.67 million last year. The institute, which is one of the smallest agencies in the federal government, provides operating support to museums across the country--but primarily smaller institutions outside of the very largest U.S. urban areas. Reagan had once proposed eliminating the institute.

* A separate amount of $307.7 million to operate the Smithsonian Institution museum complex in Washington. The Smithsonian budget proposal represents a 15% increase in funds for the museums.

Washington analysts said the arts endowment’s increase is the most significant arts policy statement in the Bush budget, even though the increase is less than for either the humanities endowment or the public broadcasting agency. Washington arts policy observers noted that Chairman John E. Frohnmayer had made a point of urging a significant increase for the politically beleaguered arts endowment he heads. The agency spent most of last year locked in a political controversy with congressional conservatives over freedom of expression and censorship issues.

Analysts said Frohnmayer successfully capitalized on the fact that his predecessor, Frank Hodsoll, is now a top official of the Office of Management and Budget. Observers speculated that Bush intended for the arts endowment budget increase to replenish Frohnmayer’s political stock.

Frohnmayer said the increase “reaffirms our nation’s commitment to preserving and promoting America’s heritage through the arts and strengthens the endowment’s ability to provide critical support for many of this nation’s best artists and arts organizations.”

Milton Rhodes, president of the American Council for the Arts, said Bush’s proposal begins to reverse the arts agency’s steady budgetary erosion. Other analysts noted that increases proposed for the other three agencies signal an apparently wider commitment in the Administration to enhancing arts and humanities support--albeit modestly--across the board.

But Rhodes noted that, while the arts endowment figure represents a true budget increase--measured in constant dollars--over last year, it would have needed to receive $223 million for 1991, just to return to the spending power it enjoyed in 1979.

“I think we had a willing ear (in terms of Bush being receptive to entreaties for increasing arts and humanities funding) and it reverses a pattern of previous Administrations, which is exciting and important,” Rhodes said. “Now we’ve got to get this through Congress, but we’ve got some friends there.”

“With these funds,” said Lynne V. Cheney, chairman of the humanities endowment, “the endowment plans to provide special opportunities in foreign-language education, to increase support for humanities research, to increase funding to preserve the content of deteriorating research materials and to carry out new efforts to expand humanities programs for public audiences.”