NEA Grants to State Cut 44% in New Restructure

California arts organizations will experience a 44% drop in federal arts funding for fiscal year 1997, and the number of grants approved has dropped approximately 70% from 510 to 153, the National Endowment for the Arts said Wednesday.

Total funding for California will drop from $14.5 million in fiscal 1995 to approximately $8 million for 1997. The NEA’s current budget is $99.5 million.

Fiscal year 1995, not 1996, is being used as a benchmark for comparison because 1995 is the last year NEA grants were made under its former multiple category granting system. The fiscal 1997 grants announced Wednesday conclude the first complete year of NEA grants under a new grant system put into place after a 40% congressional budget cut in 1995.

The agency consolidated its grants categories into four areas, eliminated most individual artists’ grants and limited arts organizations to one grant application per year. In fiscal 1996, grants were awarded under both systems.

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Percentage-wise, the loss to California arts organizations mirrors that of New York, which NEA Chair Jane Alexander said consistently gets the most NEA funding of any state because of its large number of established arts organizations and applications. New York funding will drop by 40%.

In Los Angeles, arts organizations receiving grants confirmed that their biggest federal funding cuts occurred between fiscal 1995 and 1996; for example, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn. received $252,000 from the NEA in 1995, versus $123,000 in 1996. For fiscal 1997, the organization will receive more than it did in 1996: Its 1997 grant is $200,000 to support a festival of works of Oliver Messaien, centering around concert performances of his only opera,

“Saint Francois D’Assise,” complemented with chamber music events, recitals and in-school programs.

While its dollar amount is up from fiscal 1996 under the new grant system, Philharmonic director of development Emily Laskin said the new system causes difficulties, especially if the organization makes any programming changes following its grant applications.

“Organizational support is the kind that everybody needs,” she said. “This year we have more money, but it’s not like the NEA is a foundation where we can go back to the program officer if we want to make changes. They assemble these panels, and you can’t just reassemble these panels. And at the same time they had this enormous shift, they didn’t have enough staff to help people through it.”

In an interview Wednesday, Alexander acknowledged that, while the new system has caused some confusion, the newest round of grant applications for fiscal 1998 have begun to arrive this week, many from new arts groups.

Alexander said the NEA always has had to cope with the issue of post-application programming changes on the part of arts organizations. “It’s called a ‘scope change,’ when they change the scope of their intention,” she said. “Sometimes we repanel it by phone, and sometimes, we ask for our money back. We are in a new way of thinking about things, with Congress feeling that they want to know exactly where the taxpayers’ money is going, so changes are more problematic than when we were funding seasonal work.”

In an earlier round of fiscal ’97 grants, the Music Center Opera Assn. received $150,000 for its education programs; last year, it received $65,000 to support the production of two operas. The new NEA structure, said opera spokesman Steven Johnson, has “completely changed the way we go after grant money, and where the money goes. The mission of the NEA seems to be changing.”

Center Theatre Group of Los Angeles will receive $50,000 this year, compared with $70,000 last year. The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art received $80,000 this year in a previous round of grants to support an artists-in-residence program. Last year, the museum received $165,000 for three separate grants and a museum spokeswoman said grant amounts have varied in recent years.

Other grants to Los Angeles area arts organizations include Aman Folk Ensemble ($40,000); California E.A.R. Unit Foundation ($15,000); Santa Monica’s Cornerstone Theater Company ($70,000); Jazz Tap Ensemble ($50,000); Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies ($20,000); Los Angeles Poverty Department ($20,000); Santa Monica College ($32,000); Side Street Projects ($20,000); the Da Camera Society of Mount St. Mary’s ($20,000); UCLA ($50,000); and We Tell Stories ($30,000).

Alexander said she encourages Los Angeles artists to continue to apply for grants despite the new restrictions. “Sometimes I read in the press about artists in L.A. who have kind of written off the NEA, and I think it’s a big mistake to do that,” she said. “Just because we don’t have enough funds, or individual artists grants, doesn’t mean we won’t have them in the future. These things are always cyclical.”