Arts Funding Survives, With Cuts

Lobbying for arts funding by Ovation TV and others may have helped ease the blow as the agreed-on Fiscal Year 2011 budget saw the National Endowment For the Arts funded to the tune of $155 million. While that funding was down from the prior year's $167.5 million, the House of Representatives proposed $43 million in NEA cuts and wanted to eliminate the Education Department's $40 million Arts in Education program (which was instead trimmed to $25.5 million). The National Endowment For the Humanities was funded at $155 million. Ovation CEO Charles Segars, as co-chair of the April 4 Arts Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill, had helped raise awareness of the pending cuts and made economic arguments about how much other money was pumped into the economy by NEA seed funding.