• Mission & Governance
• Services Overview
• How to Get Involved
• Standing Committees
• NCSL Foundation

• Issue Areas: A-Z
• State-Federal Relations
• NCSL Standing Committees
• News from D.C. and the States

• About State Legislatures
• Elections, Campaigns & Redistricting
• NCSL's StateConnect Directory
• Web Sites

• Online Guide to NCSL Services
• Staff Sections and Networks
• Meetings & Professional Development
• Staff Directories

• Meetings Calendar
• Online Registration
• Meetings Home Page
• Legislative Summit

• Bookstore
• State Legislatures Magazine
• NCSL's StateConnect Directory

State Cultural Policy: The Good, The Bad, & The Possibilities

Posted November 20, 2003


When it comes to bang for the buck, a relatively modest public investment in state cultural policy can reap big dividends by helping states meet a number of policy goals. However, severe budget gaps in most states have ravaged discretionary spending and hurt state cultural programs. Still, there may be unique opportunities to advance cultural policy in these lean budget times through collaboration and a little creativity.

What exactly is cultural policy? Culture, broadly defined includes the arts, folklife, historic preservation and humanities, among other fields. Arts policy is familiar to most lawmakers because every state has a state-level arts agency (although its placement within the state departments varies considerably), but the other domains are not always represented within state-level agencies. For example, state humanities councils are private, nonprofit entities, although they may receive public funds. Statewide preservation offices are nonprofit entities, but state historic preservation offices are part of state government. And folklife might be situated within any number of agencies. Despite these different organizational structures, the totality of a state's involvement with the arts, humanities, historic preservation and related fields can be thought of as the state's cultural policy.

Why is good cultural policy important to states? According to Rhode Island Representative Peter Lewiss, who also chaired NCSL's Cultural Policy Working Group, "Culture offers intangible and tangible benefits. It helps create community soul and even more importantly, it helps communities develop a 'sense of place'. When you think about all the places you've been and what you remember about them, chances are it has to do with their history or culture. These are the things that make places unique." Representative Diane Winston from Louisiana echoes this point. "What would New Orleans be without its culture, its architecture, its food and its music?" she says. "Those are the things make it special."

A strong cultural program may also help states accomplish other policy goals. And all of these things create better, more livable communities."

The Good: How Cultural Programs Help Meet State Policy Goals

"Access is key," says Susan Munley, a Senior Legislative Analyst who reviews the state arts agency in Florida's Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA). "Our legislative members feel that the most important function of state cultural agencies is that of making the arts available to everyone in the state," says Munley.

State cultural programs meet this challenge because they're designed to serve diverse groups of people of all ages and income levels, who live in both cities and rural areas. The agencies that carry out cultural policies help make cultural activities available to those who might not otherwise have the opportunity to participate.

In addition, culture is big business and one of the healthiest industries in this country. Commercial creative industries, which include publishing, audiovisual, music and recording, and the entertainment business, are among the nation's leading exports.

A thriving cultural scene also offers a competitive advantage because quality of life factors are extremely important to the highly coveted, and very mobile, knowledge-based worker. Economists have found that high quality life in a community increases the attractiveness of a job by 33 percent for young educated workers. This is different from conventional economic theory that asserts that workers will settle in places that offer them the highest paying jobs.

In short, cultural agencies help states meet the following goals:

• Provide access to cultural programs for all citizens, regardless of income or geographic location;
• Facilitate citizen participation, regardless of artistic talent;
• Promote diversity and understanding of different heritages;
• Broaden educational opportunities and improve the overall educational performance of students;
• Promote economic development;
• Provide employment and new revenue;
• Revitalize rural areas;
• Promote tourism; and
• Contribute to urban revitalization.

Clearly, a strong cultural agenda can be beneficial. Tough economic times, however, are taking their toll.

The Bad: Current Support for Arts and Culture

After steadily rising for eight years, legislative appropriations for state arts and cultural agencies decreased for the second year in a row in FY 2003. By March, 42 state arts agencies reported a budget decrease for FY 2003 and aggregate arts appropriations had dropped from $408.6 million in FY 2002 to $353.9 million for FY 2003, representing about a 13 percent decrease.

State governments traditionally support cultural institutions and programs through general fund appropriations. Cultural agencies, however, face formidable competition for limited state funds. As a result, some states have found creative ways to fund culture through a mix of sources.

One of the most common ways to supplement cultural funding is with endowment or trust funds, which are independent pools of money set aside for a specific use. Public endowments are created through legislation and managed by the state. The principal is invested in long-term securities, and the income from the interest is usually turned over to the beneficiary for specific programmatic purposes. Cultural trusts exist in 17 states, although the status is tenuous in some states as lawmakers continue to slash spending.

This point is illustrated by the fate of the newest endowment fund, the Oregon Cultural Trust, which the legislature created in 2001 to boost cultural funding for a state that ranked near the bottom for such investments. It was immediately applauded for its unique funding mechanism designed to generate new revenues in three ways: 1) tax credits for corporations and individuals who donate to both nonprofit cultural organizations and to the cultural trust; 2) proceeds from the conversion of surplus state-owned assets; and 3) revenue derived from the sale of special cultural license plates. The trust's goal is to raise $218 million and disseminate as much as $91.7 million over a 10-year period. However, now, only two years later, it faces an uncertain future as policymakers look for ways to balance the state budget.

Oregon Representative Ben Westlund, who spearheaded the effort to create the trust, said, "It is appropriate to scale back funding given the state's budget woes." But he disagrees with the notion of halting it entirely, in part because "the arts can be a powerful economic development engine at a time when the state needs one."

Proposals to eliminate or drastically reduce state arts funding have surfaced in Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Oregon. Other states, such as Florida and Massachusetts, have slashed their state arts and culture budgets by half. But many legislatures are working hard to preserve cultural funding in spite of budget woes, noting that these programs enjoy popular support and contribute to residents' quality of life. Elden Mulder, the former co-finance chair in Alaska, said that when arts funding became an issue in his state as a result of the budget shortfall, the Legislature decided to provide the level of funding necessary to leverage federal funds and keep the agency alive. "Just because there is an economic dip now doesn't mean we should stop investing in our communities' future," he said.

The picture is clear. Times are tough all around and state support for culture is unlikely to recover any time soon. For most state cultural agencies, budget cuts are nothing new; many saw their state appropriations decline in the early 1990s. In fact, many states used the general fund shortfalls of 1991 and 1992 as an opportunity to find supplemental revenue sources for cultural programs. Cultural agencies also repositioned themselves within state government and formed partnerships with other agencies and developed grass roots advocacy efforts. It seems these efforts paid off. State arts agencies fared well in the late 1990s. Jonathan Katz, Chief Executive Officer of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies says, "Then and now, state leaders continue to invest in culture during tough financial times because they understand the public benefits of this comparatively modest investment. Nationwide, government spending on state arts agencies represents only 0.063 percent of states' general fund expenditures. That's a small but sound public investment that brings in tax revenue and advances states' long-term competitive goals."

But what concerns many arts supporters is that unlike past years of decreased appropriations from state governments, the other traditional cultural funding sources (earned income from ticket sales, foundation support and private contributions) have also declined. Earned income is suffering from wary consumers. A bearish stock market and slow economy have shrunk endowment funds and squeezed private foundations. In addition, corporate and individual donations are down. These factors combined may make it more difficult to weather the squall in the short term. The fact that all major sources of support for cultural programs are down at the same time is indicative of convergent forces coming together at once to create "a perfect storm."

But not all the news is bad. Federal funding for the arts is stable and it seems that the congressional culture wars of the past are just that-in the past. President Bush has proposed $117 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in the coming year, slightly more that this year's budget. The same is true of the National Endowment for the Humanities with a proposed increase of $2.4 million to $127 million. More important to arts supporters, however, is that the philosophical debate about funding has waned. It used to be that the very mention of the NEA would raise red flags for lawmakers, largely as a result of opposition from conservative Christian groups who believed the agency funded "filth and pornography." The controversy has faded and the names Serrano and Mapplethorpe-perhaps the most notorious offenders-are merely chapters in a complex novel containing many plot twists. As the new NEA Chair, Dana Gioia, put it, "The endowment has survived a difficult period in its history and we now need to begin a new phase. We must rebuild a national consensus for the responsible support of the arts by demonstrating the public value of the agency's programs." Under his guidance, the NEA is moving out of its defensive posture and moving forward with the business of developing a national cultural agenda.

Furthermore, there may be unique opportunities to advance state cultural policy during these lean times. Necessity breeds creativity and may reveal some new partners. One of the best ways for cultural organizations to exercise political clout is through collaboration--with each other or with other state agencies.

The Possibilities: Cultural Collaborations

The Maine New Century Community Program presents a good example of successful cultural collaboration at the state level. In 1998, seven different independent agencies (the Maine Arts Commission, the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, the Maine State Library, the Maine State Museum, the Maine Historical Society, the Maine State Archives and the Maine Humanities Council) came together and developed a collaborative cultural plan. The result is more funding for rural cultural projects administered by all seven agencies and a program that is quickly becoming a national model for successful collaboration. "In 2003, the program was selected as a semifinalist in the prestigious Harvard University Innovations in American Government Awards competition," says Erik Jorgensen, Assistant Director of the Maine Humanities Council. "This is often described as the academy awards for government programming," he says.

In its first year, the New Century Program distributed more than $3.2 million across the state and generated $9.8 million in matching funds and in-kind assistance. More than 420 grants were awarded, reaching 180 communities across the state. Collaboratively, these agencies have more impact that they would separately because together they can pool resources and they have more visibility and clout.

Even now, with the current budget shortfall, the program remains popular with lawmakers although funding was cut back in the 2003 legislative session. According to Maine Representative Nancy Sullivan, chair of the Business, Research and Economic Development Committee, "This collaboration is popular because it spread the wealth around the state and focused attention on what Maine had to offer. It caused communities to take pride in their Yankee ingenuity and gives them the opportunity to showcase different traditions they have created over the years."

Cultural agencies also collaborate with other state agencies. For example, California has a statewide Arts in Corrections program. It began as a pilot project in 1977. Now there are programs in 32 prisons across the state ranging from vocal jazz classes to creative writing. The program has survived at the very time lawmakers have gotten tough on crime. But it lives because it works. The California Department of Corrections has evaluated the program with rigor, demonstrating reduced recidivism rates among participants and fewer problems with bad behavior, which equals cost savings for the taxpayer.

Cultural collaboration also occurs between arts agencies and education departments. This is a natural partnership in the modern era of standardized testing since more and more research shows that children who study the arts demonstrate stronger overall academic performance.

New York's joint initiative, the Empire State Partnership, between the state arts agency and the state education department is designed to help students meet higher state education standards by mastering higher order thinking and problem solving skills. In one project, middle school students are creating outdoor landscaped areas and an outdoor amphitheater. All of these components are linked by an overall design theme, and the project draws upon a range of skills that incorporate math, science, illustration and sculpture. The work also involves students with their parents, community heritage and cultural organizations, local architects and other professionals.

Another common alliance is between state cultural agencies and tourism agencies. The Blue Ridge Heritage Initiative is a nationally recognized cultural tourism success story that includes a broad range of partners. It began in 1997 as mountain communities, plus state, tribal and federal partners in North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia looked for ways to promote the unique resources of the southern Appalachians. The result is a host of products including websites and guidebooks for the Blue Ridge Music Trails, the Cherokee Heritage Trails and Garden and Countryside Trails of the Blue Ridge. It has also spurred the growth of locally grown economic and community development initiatives such as North Carolina's Handmade in America program.

The list goes on. Across the country, states are emerging as innovators in cultural collaboration. As a result of such partnerships, cultural programs may be preserved as states continue to grapple with budget shortfalls. As NCSLs cultural policy group members pointed out, "synergy is created when agencies work together in the spirit of cooperation instead of functioning in isolation." And in the end, they may wind up stronger than ever.

How Can State Policymakers Promote Cultural Policy? One question that surfaced during discussions with lawmakers about state cultural policy was what legislators could do to encourage cultural collaborations and good policy development. Strategies that have worked in some states and ideas generated by NCSL's Cultural Policy Working Group include the following: Create a legislative standing committee for cultural issues. Create a cultural caucus if it is not possible to create a standing committee. Convene a symposium with policymakers and the cultural sector to discuss cultural policy issues. Hold public hearings on cultural issues across the state. Require cultural agencies to be accountable for the distribution of their public funds. Require or encourage legislative representation on cultural boards and commissions. Integrate cultural concerns into other policy areas, such as tourism and economic development. Conduct economic impact studies on state cultural activities. Survey new businesses that relocate to the state to determine why they chose that particular state.

Arts & Historic Preservation

Visitor counts for this page.