Arts
Supporters,
Please see the message below...it's happening again
this year. The Executive Budget presented to the Louisiana House Appropriations
Committee requests a $1 MILLION CUT to Decentralized Arts Funding (DAF) and a $1
MILLION CUT to Statewide Art Grants (SAG) for a total of $2 million or 41%.
These cuts are in addition to the 12% DAF and SAG cuts sustained last spring for
the current year's budget, and the 9% mid-year cuts made again in January to
current DAF and SAG grants in-progress.
PLEASE TAKE
ACTION NOW! Contact your legislators and ask them to reinstate DAF and SAG
funding! Visit the Louisiana Partnership for Arts Advocacy at www.lparts.org, type your zip code
into the "Write Your Legislators" box, click on the top alert "State of
Louisiana - Severe Funding Cuts Proposed," and follow the directions from there.
It's that easy and only takes a few minutes.
Last year the
Executive Budget requested an 81% elimination to arts funding, but strong
grassroots support and the backing of Lt. Gov Landrieu convinced our Legislators
to reduce the cuts to only 12%. This year Lt. Gov Landrieu is leaving to become
Mayor of New Orleans. The arts need your support more than ever.
If you have ever
attended a museum, theatre, festival,
music or dance concert; enjoyed the free children's arts programming in
libraries and schools; patronized arts and cultural organizations; applied for
an arts grant; or benefited from the increased quality of life, economic
development, and tourism that the arts provide your community, then these cuts
WILL affect you. Loss of these funds will create a ripple effect crippling
Louisiana's greatest natural resource: our culture.
Further, cutting economic drivers
during a time of economic crisis is counterproductive. The state's own economic
impact studies show that for every $1 the state spends on DAF, $11 is
returned to state tax coffers and for
every $1 the state spends on SAG, $28 is returned.
Visit www.lparts.org and ask your Legislators to reinstate DAF and
SAG today.
PLEASE FORWARD THIS
MESSAGE, and thank you for your continued
support!
Laura Larkin
Grants & Community Development
Director
Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge
427 Laurel Street
Baton
Rouge, LA 70801
225-344-8558
fax
225-344-7777
llarkin@acgbr.com
www.artsbr.org
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