Arts Education Bills Signed

Two bills that could generate hundreds of thousands of dollars to be used for arts education throughout the state were signed into law by Gov. Pete Wilson.

The governor late Wednesday approved a measure authored by Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) that establishes a new vanity license plate with a depiction of the state designed by a California artist. The plates would be sold for an initial fee of $20, with a $10 annual renewal. Senate Bill 1571, authored by Sen. Henry J. Mello (D-Santa Cruz), authorizes money generated by the plates to go toward local arts education.

The money, estimated at an initial $440,000 annually, is to be administered by the California Arts Council and the state Department of Education. Adding in matching-grant funds available from the National Endowment for the Arts, the CAC expects the pot could reach nearly $750,000 at first. Officials estimate that the money would become available in fiscal year 1994-1995.

The one proviso to the program is that the Department of Motor Vehicles requires a minimum of 5,000 people to apply for any specialized license plate before the first will be issued. The 5,000-minimum for the arts license plates is required to be met by Dec. 31, 1993, although an extension is possible.

A central element of the legislation is that funds would be awarded to local arts agencies. Those agencies would develop arts education programs in partnership with local artists and organizations, parents and school districts.

Countywide arts councils or city arts agencies could apply for 2-to-1 matching grants averaging between $20,000 and $40,000. The grants could be used to pay for transporting students on cultural field trips, more classroom instruction by trained artists, and other public school arts programs that have been drastically cut back over the past several years, largely as a result of Proposition 13, passed in 1978.

CAC director Joanne C. Kozberg hailed the bills’ passage, noting that general-fund dollars to the arts are “definitely contracting.” The CAC’s budget was cut by 15% this year.

“If you ask me what the greatest problem facing the arts today is, I’d say it’s the lack of education,” Kozberg said.

Former Gov. George Deukmejian twice vetoed similar legislation, which could be particularly beneficial to Orange County. The county has no umbrella arts council, but does have several active municipal arts agencies, to which the CAC would now be able to award grants directly for the first time if enough license plates are sold.

Kozberg noted that “no specialized plate” has met the DMV’s requirement for 5,000 applications. Supporters of a so-called collegiate license plate, intended to raise funds for colleges and universities in the state, failed to attain the threshold last year, she added.

But Paul Minicucci, consultant to the legislative Joint Committee on the Arts that is chaired by Mello, pointed out that the artistic license plate would cost less than the collegiate plate--$20 versus $50--and would have broader appeal.

Some 200,000 Californians “make their living in the arts,” according to several studies, including one by the NEA, said Minicucci, who has been working for the bills’ passage for eight years.

Plus, there are about 2,000 nonprofit state arts organizations whose board members probably total another 200,000, and myriad commercial galleries throughout the state, “not to speak of audience members and people who are not affiliated with the arts (who) will want the plate because of its design,” he said.

Joe Felz, director of the Fullerton Museum Center, also praised the governor’s action. He heads a committee that’s been working to establish a countywide arts agency for more than two years, and said the museum center wrote letters supporting the bills to the governor and local representatives.

“It’s great. Now municipalities will be able to apply” for arts-education funding, he said, adding that local school officials constantly request arts-education programs from the museum center and the Muckenthaler Cultural Center, also in Fullerton.