School children arrive at Springfield Symphony Hall for a student concert. (Photo courtesy of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra)
by Mark G. Auerbach
Western Massachusetts is known for its creative economy. World-famous museums like The Clark, Mass MoCA, Historic Deerfield, and The Norman Rockwell Museum are magnets for tourists to the area. Tanglewood, Willamstown Theatre Festival, and Jacob’s Pillow draw crowds to their performances. Barrington Stage and Berkshire Theatre Group performances have revived downtown Pittsfield. When folks patronize these places, they also spend money on parking, restaurants, and maybe a picnic or souvenir. Or, they fill area hotels and motels, as they make the area a destination. Our arts groups draw talented directors, designers, actors, costumers, and others who make their home here, and spend their paychecks here. And a lot of businesses attract the best employees to their companies, because the quality of life in Western Massachusetts is unparalleled.
President Trump officially released his proposed $1.5 trillion budget last week, which included a 100% funding cut for 19 federal agencies, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities..
The Chicago Tribune reported that last year, the NEA sent $47 million to 50 states and five jurisdictions, funds that helped to leverage $368 million from state governments. Together, those funds were distributed through 24,000 grants, according to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA).
Current, the national trade paper for public broadcasters, reported that over the past 20 years, NEH has awarded about $142 million to public media projects. “Funding for public film and radio is central to NEH’s mission,” NEH spokesperson Theola DeBose told Current. “Both films and radio programs provide a bridge between the academy and the public, bringing compelling ideas from scholarship to wide audiences.”
Todd Trebour, Program Coordinator at The Arts Extension Service at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, explained how federal money makes it way into local non-profit organizations in Western Massachusetts. “40% of the NEA’s total budget goes directly to State Arts Agencies, such as the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which gets about $850,000. These funds must be matched by the Massachusetts legislature. The total gets disbursed to local arts organizations and arts councils. The NEA also directly funds local non-profits, who must match the grant monies with dollars from other sources, businesses, foundations, and individuals.”
Barrington Stage theatres in downtown Pittsfield have helped to revitalize the city’s downtown. (Photo courtesy of Barrington Stage.)
Some WMass grantees of NEA monies include smaller organizations like Orion Magazine in Great Barrington, The CARE Center in Holyoke, and Double Edge Theatre in Ashfield, MA. Other grants support the major organizations like Tanglewood, Jacob’s Pillow, The Clark, Mass MoCA, Berkshire Museum, and the Norman Rockwell Museum.
Some organizations do not directly get NEA monies, but get projects funded through state and local arts councils. Peter Salerno, Executive Director of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra says that the SSO’s youth concerts, which serve 4,000 local 4th graders annually, are funded by $24,000 in monies from state and local cultural councils. “Without this support, a program like that, which provides local children with a classical music experience, would be put at risk”, says Salerno.
Should CPB monies be cut, New England Public Radio, the NPR member station headquartered in Springfield with an audience of 177,400, would lose the 7% of its annual operating budget funded by CPB, according to the network’s CEO and General Manager Martin Miller. “This year that’s $360,000. However, should its funding be completely eliminated, there are other things that NEPR, would have to pay for as of right now, including music rights and interconnection for the transmission of programming to stations. A loss of $360,000 with additional expenses would have a devastating effect on our local programming, meaning news, music, and community engagement projects and events. Our ability to provide a comprehensive and meaningful local/regional service would be severely diminished”.
“The best firewall that will protect NEPR and every public media station that people listen to and/or watch, from an uncertain future with regard to federal funding, is robust financial support from everyone who uses these public services and can afford to contribute to them.”, added Miller.
If CPB monies are cut, the impact could be severe for public television stations like Springfield-based WGBY, which serves viewers in Western New England, according to Interim General Manager Lynn Page. Federal funds account for 21.5% of WGBY’s total operating budget.
The Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. (Photo courtesy of Berkshire Theatre Group.)
According to Page, “The federal money comes into a station as a Community Service Grant. At WGBY, we use that funding to help support our services to the community by providing local content, education services and community outreach. These include the costs of production for our flagship public affairs series Connecting Point, our award-winning, bilingual series Presencia, and our commitment to students and teachers through As School’s Match Wits, and the many other award-winning programs we have produced.”
Page added “If WGBY did not receive our CPB community service grant, all those locally-produced programs would be in jeopardy, and the area would lose a major source of programs that reflect our community and region. And I am not sure we would have a way to replace the CPB funding that now supports our core services in Education and Outreach, including teacher professional development and our programs for Pre-K/Kindergarten pupils and our community based storytelling project. WGBY works with local partners to improve outcomes for our youth, their families and the community through our education and outreach efforts. So this loss of funding would affect not only viewers, but families, students and teachers”
Western Massachusetts creative economy would take a big hit on many levels, if President Trump’s budget goes through.
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Mark G. Auerbach studied theatre at American University and the Yale School of Drama. He’s worked for arts organizations and reported on theatre for newspapers and radio.
