Art advocates call for more funding for creatives as California’s budget deadline looms

California lawmakers are working to finalize the state’s budget ahead of the June 15 deadline, as various interest groups call on the legislature to preserve funding.

One of the items that may be on the chopping block is funding for arts and culture, which advocates say has been stagnant for decades.

The California Arts Council was founded 50 years ago and is the state’s only public arts grant provider, with money accessible to all 58 counties. But California lags behind other states in supporting arts and culture sources, ranking 35th nationally in per-capita funding.

Julie Baker is the CEO of California for the Arts, which advocates on behalf of artists and creative organizations. 

She spoke with Insight Host Vicki Gonzalez about the need to keep — and increase — the level of public assistance to support the state’s creative workforce.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

What does California for the Arts do?

We're not directly connected to the Arts Council, that is your state arts agency, but we are the advocacy organization that establishes how important arts and culture, and particularly artists and culture-bearers, are to California. [We] really try to influence the legislature and the administration to invest in that workforce and to pass legislation… looking at ways that we can increase opportunities for artists to thrive in California. Whether that's around housing, being engaged in public health and mental health issues, all the different ways that artists contribute to their communities. 

But often — and historically — it has been without the investment to match their contributions. So we are trying to establish how important it is to see this as a public good and an essential part of our civic infrastructure.

How does the Golden State rank when it comes to funding for the arts?

One in 10 jobs in the state of California are part of the creative economy, including the downstream jobs that benefit [like] restaurant workers, hotels, all the other things. It's pretty shocking actually if you look at the statistics; we are actually behind Florida in terms of per-capita funding. We're behind Tennessee, South Dakota and Missouri. 

Now, this is specifically funding that the California Arts Council gets. There are other places that funding can go for the creative economy. We saw the film and TV tax credit, for example, triple over last year, and that's really critical for particularly Los Angeles County. However, what's important about the California Arts Council — which was established 50 years ago by Governor Jerry Brown — is that it's really providing access for all Californians to arts and culture.

I think what we've seen historically is that in areas where there's philanthropy, you can see that level of investment. The United States and now California specifically, we're way behind other countries in how we invest public dollars in arts and culture. We rely then on philanthropy or earned revenue to make it happen, or we rely on generational wealth for artists to be able to afford to be artists. Rural communities don't have access to philanthropy. Historically disinvested communities of color don't have access to the same level of philanthropy. Then we see a lack of arts and culture in certain communities, so this is about equity. 

Fifty years ago, that must have been during Governor Brown’s first go-around.

That's right. It was pretty radical, in a sense, back then to talk about access and in that way. For many years that agency had $1 million and that was it; we were 49th in the United States. So we certainly have seen increases in the Creative Corps… that was the single largest appropriation to the agency during COVID when there were federal dollars.

But now the government is facing difficult decisions in terms of the structural deficit. While we have our legislative champions and we've seen Newsom be supportive of arts and culture over the years, it is now falling down to the bottom of the list, whereas we see it as essential. We think we can actually be part of the solutions to many of the problems that they're trying to address.

Where does the Creative Corps stand today? 

We would love for it to still be possible. We’ve been advocating for two years now to see it come back. It has not; there's zero funding for it currently at the state level. Certain communities have seen private investment continuing because they've seen such tremendous impact. 

There’s such a huge multiplier effect when you invest in arts and culture. For example, for performing arts —  every dollar that you spend in a community, $38 in addition circulates from that $1. For every 100 jobs in performing arts, there's 156 that downstream benefit from that.

The Creative Corps was essential to artist employment. It was really modeled after the WPA [Works Progress Administration] but for the 21st century and hiring artists, valuing their work, to be employed in service to civic issues for public good. It was incredibly successful; more artists were employed in California during the Creative Corps than the height of the WPA.

The legislature has until June 15 to approve and vote on a budget for the next fiscal year. What are you asking for in this year’s allocations? 

In the 50th year, the current allocation to the Arts Council for local assistance grants is $24 million. That's for the entire state. They also have a cultural district program; there's 24 cultural districts in the state of California which are really community and economic development strategies focusing on cultures in particular communities. They also have zero funding. There was $10 million and that will be expended by June 30.

The ask for the Arts Council both from the legislature and from advocates is to get $50 million in local assistance funding, one-time, to start, and include in that an allocation for cultural districts. Additionally, the Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund [which] is in response to the employment law change [under] AB 5 that happened in 2020.

That law was really meant for Uber and Lyft drivers. 

That's correct, but the unintended consequence was for arts and culture, and particularly performing arts. If you're putting on a show with 100 performers back in the day, you could pay people as independent contractors. Today if you want to be in compliance with state law, you have to pay everyone at least a minimum wage, and overtime for rehearsals and everything else. These underinvested-in performing arts organizations, particularly under $2 million, have seen their expenses go up 40-60% to be in compliance with state law. 

Several years ago Senator Portantino created SB 1116… this was a historic bill [where] employers, labor unions, advocates came together and worked on it. We had $11.5 million to give out, about 100 organizations received that. Over $40 million in requests came in within days. That currently is unfunded as well. We also have a request of the legislature to continue that funding. The ask is $40 million, but I'll be honest with you, we will take what we can get to continue these programs. Unfortunately, as the arts have always had to be scrappy, we know how to take a dollar and really make it work in our communities.

Is there a will there right now, when you're talking to lawmakers?

I've never received, “this isn’t something that we want to support.” The challenging part; we get a lot of folks saying, “of course arts and culture are important,” but they haven't yet prioritized it.  I think in a budget that's $350 billion dollars to ask for, let's say $66 million or even $30 million, is what we call budget dust. 

I get it; it all adds up and they have to find it and figure out how to balance it. But let's also remember that a lot of this is fueled by AI. We need to reinvest in human creativity now more than ever, and to invest in artists in California now while we're seeing this incredible transformation to automation. This is essential work, and I cannot underscore how important that is right now in particular.

You can listen to the full conversation, as well as hear from Social Practice Artist Janine Mapurunga, here.