Budget Puts Virginia Arts Commission Funding in Danger

Some potentially bad news for local arts crept under our radar at the end of February. The Virginia House of Delegates passed a budget proposal that includes a 50 percent cut to funding for the Commission for the Arts next year, and the total elimination of the agency by July 1, 2011.

The Arlington Arts Center, Jane Franklin Dance, Torpedo Factory, Teatro de la Luna, and the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra are only a few of the hundreds of arts organizations, not to mention youth groups, museums and individual artists, that receive funding from the Commission. If state funding were eliminated, Virginia would also lose $1 million in federal arts funding.

The Virginia Senate's competing recommendation, on the other hand, would only freeze the Commission's budget at its current level, a little over $4 million. The General Assembly must reconcile the competing bills in an attempt to solve the commonwealth's $4 billion shortfall before adjourning on March 13.