In Saturday’s (10/31) Kansas City Star, Ann Spivak and Robert Trussell write, “More than 60 local arts organizations that receive state funding, from the Kansas City Symphony and the Lyric Opera to Paul Mesner Puppets and the Kansas City Repertory Theatre, will hardly feel the effects of large Missouri budget cuts announced this week. ‘These cuts are not going to stop any of our grants,’ Beverly Strohmeyer, executive director of the Missouri Arts Council, said Thursday. ‘The cuts are bad, but not as bad as they could have been.’ Almost every nonprofit arts group in town receives its state funding through the Missouri Arts Council, she said. And although the Arts Council is taking a big cut—its $10 million budget, which was cut $1 million earlier this year, is now being slashed an additional $4.4 million through June 30—the council has a trust fund of about $23 million that it can dip into. The fund comprises earnings from an income tax imposed on nonresident entertainers and professional athletes who play or perform in the state. … Local arts organizations said they expected to feel the full impact of the cuts after next July, when a new state arts council budget rolls around.”
Posted November 2, 2009
