The Art of the Deficit-Lack of Government Support
This is the second installment of my new series “The Art of the Deficit”. The focus of this post is to demonstrate how federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts impacts the budgets of professional orchestras. Public funding of the arts in America has a long history of being inadequate and even controversial. Unlike our counterparts in Europe where state funding of the arts is in the billions, artists in the United States are left to fend for themselves. The goal of this series is to dig deep into the reasons why many orchestras are running millions of dollars in the red year after year. When the numbers are crunched and the role of the NEA is investigated, the results are very revealing.
I had the opportunity in 2007 to attend a National Endowment for the Arts grant workshop. The workshop was a basic introduction to the NEA, what their mission is, and how one goes about submitting grants. I didn’t go for any specific project, just out of curiosity for how this agency works and how it relates to the orchestra field. What I learned was a real eye opener in terms of how the agency corresponds to the fixed cost structure of the modern symphony orchestra. After sitting through about three quarters of the presentation I had my fill and left. When I returned home, I pondered about what the real relationship was between our government and its support for the arts.
The biggest revelation of attending this workshop is that the NEA only provides grants on a project by project basis. They made it extremely clear that they do not support the daily operations of any arts group. Every grant proposal was to be in reference to a specific project. I was under the impression that they would give an orchestra funding and that the money would support the general operations of the organization. If this is the way the NEA functions, how does this relate to the bottom line of an orchestra budget?
The question I posed to myself was this. I compared the grant amount that each orchestra received with the size of their annual budget. The numbers were shocking. So small. For example, lets take the Columbus Symphony in Ohio. They are in the middle of a financial crisis right now. Their annual budget is around 12 million dollars and their 2007 grant from the NEA was $15,000. That is barely 1/8 of 1%. This is almost a negligible amount. The ratio is about the same even when you look at the big budget groups. The Los Angeles Philharmonic received the highest grant for an orchestra in 2007 at $100,000. Their budget is around 70 millions dollars. That leaves their percentage at around 1/7 of 1%. Even though something is better than nothing, the numbers and percentages are very telling.
Orchestras also have the opportunity to get government support from state and local agencies. The Columbus Symphony received a grant of $153,082 from the Ohio Arts council in 2007. This works out to be just over 1% of the total budget. Local governments(cities and counties) often have a much more difficult time giving support due to their smaller budgets and lack of resources.
The 2008 fiscal year budget for the NEA is $144.7 million, up $20 million from fiscal year 2007. Even though this slight increase is encouraging, this an extremely small number to support the thousands of artistic companies in the nation. This is to be split among every museum, dance group, library, theater group, orchestra, etc. In comparison to the 3 trillion dollar federal budget, this is a drop in the bucket. It doesn’t even compare to the payroll of the New York Yankees, which is over $200 million.
In conclusion, the lack of government support leaves the American orchestra almost completely dependent on the support of the private sector. Unlike Europe where state arts funding is commonplace, orchestras are financially on their own. Perhaps we are no different than any other business in a market economy. This is a fact of life and we have to learn to live it. The chances of any substantial increase in government funding are slim to non-existent. We need to look at different ways that orchestras can make money and offset their propensity to be millions of dollars in the red on an annual basis.
To read a complete list of NEA grants to orchestras in 2007 click here.
1 comment February 11th, 2008
