Calif. Lawmaker Proposes Huge Boost in State Arts Funding
February 13, 2014 | Read Time: 1 minute
A California lawmaker said Wednesday that he will introduce legislation to pump at least $25-million in taxpayer funds annually into California Arts Council, which would more than quintuple the grant-making agency’s budget, writes the Los Angeles Times.
In recent years, the council has operated on about $5-million a year, $1-million of it allocated from state coffers by the governor and legislators. California ranks 48th in the nation in overall arts funding and last in per-capita taxpayer spending on its arts body.
State Sen. Ted Lieu announced the proposed funding boost at a hearing of the legislature’s Joint Committee on the Arts, which reviewed a report by Los Angeles’s Otis College of Art and Design on the economic benefits of the state’s nonprofit arts world and creative industries.
