Arts funding at risk in Brown's budget proposal

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In this downtown Los Angeles mural, a young girl swings from the word “PARK,” formerly written as “PARKING.” Just down the block from this area, a downtown resident group is looking to find a little more than $6 million to transform a parking lot into a community park with a playground. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

2/19

“Kissing Coppers,” a life-size portrait of two policemen sharing a kiss, is one of Banksy’s most famous artworks. The piece was created in 2004 on the walls of a pub in Brighton, England. It was then carved from the wall and sold to an anonymous buyer in Miami for $575,000 in 2014. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

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A visitor to Paris’ Drouot auction house looks at Banksy’s “Very Little Helps” prior to an October auction. The piece sold for about $7,200. (Thiabult Camus / Associated Press)

4/19

After a daylong hiatus “due to police activity,” Banksy stenciled an image of a man leaning on a wall, holding a batch of falling flowers. The creation went up on the side of the Hustler Club in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan. (John Moore / Getty Images)

5/19

This pop-up exhibition depicting the Occupy movement was a collaboration between Banksy and Brazilian twin street artists Os Gemeos. A Fox news report claimed Banksy paid $50,000 to hang his work from this property in New York, but Banksy said the space was donated by the owner. (Michael Loccisano / Getty Images)

6/19

As part of Banksy’s monthlong residency in New York, Banksy found clever use of a privately owned Brooklyn street scape. The artist drew the silhouettes of two kimono-clad women on a circular-like object, as if the pair were sitting on a bridge carrying parasols near a cherry blossom tree. (Justin Lane / EPA)

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Banksy created a mini-tribute to the Twin Towers on the streets of Tribeca. The image portrays two buildings against the New York skyline, one accented with an orange chrysanthemum.
(Jason Szenes / EPA )

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Trying art in motion, Banksy conceived a slaughterhouse delivery truck replete with squealing stuffed animals. The farmyard pigs and sheeps are on their way to death. (Andrew Gombert / EPA )

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Seen through a fence in New York City, Banksy’s trio of stampeding horses wear night-vision goggles while a group of men kneel before them. A tape recording of a 2007 U.S. airstrike plays in the background, revealing the killing of two children and a Reuters journalist. (Andrew Burton / Getty Images)

10/19

Located across the street from the First Ukrainian Assembly of God, this piece is based on a 1950s image by photographer Berni Schoenfield, depicting a Jesuit priest at a Martyr’s Shrine. A portion of the original piece has been defaced by vandals. (Jason Szenes / EPA )

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In this aerosol artwork spotted in Queens, New York, a man begins to scrub away the phrase “What we do in life echoes in Eternity” -- a quote picked up from the film “Gladiator.” (Jason Szenes / EPA)

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Stenciled on the streets of New York, a dog is seen urinating on a fire hydrant, with a thought bubble reading “You Complete Me...” (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

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In the the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, a heart-shaped helium balloon is covered in bandages. The piece was defaced with red spray paint shortly after being completed. Banksy has painted a famous heart-shaped balloon before in his 2012 London piece “Girl With a Balloon.” (Andrew Burton / Getty Images)

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In this New York Lower East Side piece, Banksy added the words “The Musical” to existing graffiti that read “Playground Mob.” (Andrew Burton / Getty Images)

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Banksy wrote the words “This is my New York accent” beneath a highly stylized “...normally I write like this.” Like several other pieces, this one was later vandalized by graffiti. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

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Banksy’s graffiti mural “Love Is in the Air” illustrates a black and white masked protester about to throw a bouquet of colorful flowers. The piece was up for auction at Bonhams in London. (Justin Tallis / AFP / Getty Images)

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“Flower Girl” is a 9-by-8 foot mural on brick, originally located at an LA gas station. The owner of that gas station cut out that section of the wall and brought it to an auction. The mural depicts a girl holding a basket of flowers as a security camera blossoms on top of its stem. ( Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images )

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Seen in Bristol, England, this large piece portrays three police men approaching a teddy bear with a lit cocktail in his hand. For about nine years, the piece remained untouched but was then defaced with red paint. (Matt Cardy / Getty Images)

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At the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, Banksy premiered his film “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” about a man who desperately wanted to create a documentary on Banksy. During the fest in Park City, Utah, Banksy created an image of a filmmaker zooming in on a pink flower. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

By Mike Boehm

Jan. 9, 2014 5:50 PM PT

Advocates of boosting California’s meager state-funded grants to the arts received official word Thursday that they’ve got some heavy lifting to do, because Gov. Jerry Brown’s new budget proposal has no good news for the arts.

Brown’s budget plan calls for an overall 8.5% spending increase, including major boosts to education, but envisions a $9,000 cut for the state’s arts-grant agency, the California Arts Council — from a projected $5.058 million in the current fiscal year to $5.049 million in the 2014-15 budget year that begins July 1.

Brown’s budget also would exact a small cut from another cultural program: the budget for the state-run California Science Center in L.A.’s Exposition Park, which also includes funding for the next-door California African American Museum. Brown has proposed a $76,000 reduction to $28.71 million.

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“We were expecting it,” Brad Erickson, president of the lobbying group California Arts Advocates, said of Brown’s essentially “flat-lined” proposal for arts grants.

The game plan now, he said, is to persuade legislators, who’ll pass the final budget after further consultation with Brown, who has line-item veto power, to be more generous and end California’s chronic last-place ranking in per capita funding of state arts grantmaking agencies.

This year, a one-time $2-million allocation from Assembly Speaker John Pérez’s discretionary funds has lifted California temporarily into 48th place, above Georgia and last-place Kansas.

Erickson said arts advocates are already trying to make a case with legislative leaders for a $10-million to $25-million general fund allocation for the arts council. “We think that’s something that would be significant but obtainable,” given the improving picture for state tax revenues. “We’re not talking about something that seems a stretch anymore,” he said.

Such amounts would be a huge relative increase. For years, the arts council has received a fraction over $1 million from the general fund, the core pot of money fed by state taxpayers. Its budgets also include a comparable amount from the federal government and more than $2 million a year in charity from California motorists who voluntarily pay extra for special arts-funding license plates.

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With a 15-member staff and a volunteer board of political appointees, the council runs a grants program for nonprofit arts organizations, with an emphasis on grass-roots education programs and community-building through the arts.

Last year, arts advocates rallied around a bill submitted by Assembly member Adrin Nazarian (D-Sherman Oaks) that called for a permanent annual arts-grant allocation of at least $75 million from the general fund – a $2 per capita commitment that would have put California just outside the top ten states nationwide in per capita arts funding.

Although the bill died in committee, arts advocates felt that it helped draw legislators’ attention to the issue and figured in Perez’s decision to provide his one-time $2 million allocation.

Erickson said this year’s push will begin next month, when L.A.’s Otis College of Art and Design is scheduled to issue its “Annual Report on the Creative Economy.” Previous reports assessed the economic impact of the arts and culture in Los Angeles County and Orange County, but the report to be released Feb. 6 examines the statewide economic impact of the arts.

Otis used a grant from the California Arts Council to expand the report’s scope, and advocates hope to make it part of their pitch to persuade legislators and the governor that investing in arts grants can yield broad economic benefits.

mike.boehm@latimes.com

Arts funding at risk in Brown’s budget proposal

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