East Lansing Public Library Director Sylvia Marabate discusses how state budget cuts are affecting the East Lansing Public Library.
Kresge Art Museum usually hosts multiple special exhibitions each year, featuring the work of artists such as Andy Warhol and Luke Swank. But next year, the museum only will host one outside exhibition and will rely more on MSU-owned collections.
Amid a dwindling Michigan budget, state grants that supply the museum with funds for special exhibitions have been slashed.
Funding for the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, or MCACA, is being cut by 71 percent, leading to a drastic cut to MCACA grants, which have provided Kresge with as much as $20,000 for special exhibitions in previous years.
But arts funding isn’t the only thing being erased from the state’s canvas.
As lawmakers scramble to balance a $2.8 billion deficit to Michigan’s $40 billion budget by Oct. 31, the Legislature has looked first to arts and libraries as potential areas for cuts.
In addition to the 71 percent cut to MCACA funding, legislators passed an education budget last week that cut library aid by 40 percent.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm also issued an executive order earlier this year that eliminated the state’s Department of History, Arts and Libraries on Oct. 1. All of these actions indicate that history and culture are the first areas to be forgotten when balancing a budget, said John Bracey, executive director of MCACA.
“I can’t imagine it’s good to have it appear as though you have policy makers abandoning their history and forsaking their future history at a time like this,” Bracey said.
Cultural cuts
Both Kresge Art Museum and the MSU Museum will be affected by the state’s cultural abandonment.
The MCACA budget for the upcoming fiscal year was cut to $2.3 million from $7.9 million — just more than a quarter of its former size.
Art funding gradually began decreasing even before this cut.
In 2002, MCACA had a $25 million budget to provide grants to various nonprofit organizations including MSU’s museums, said Mike Latvis, director of public policy at the nonprofit art group Art Serve Michigan.
“The about 290 organizations that receive funding support about 15,000 jobs and 70,000 artist contracts,” Latvis said.
Right now, it is unknown how the $2.3 million budget will be distributed, but officials said
it certainly will affect the council’s ability to provide grants. Last year, Kresge received $9,000 in MCACA grants, and the MSU Museum received $38,400.
Bandes said at Kresge these state grants fund special exhibitions that feature pieces of art from other museums and galleries.
“Anything that is a special initiative we (will) have to find different grant money for,” she said.
With the loss of funding, upcoming exhibits such as Kresge’s “American Modernism,” which is scheduled to begin in January, will rely on pieces from the university-owned collection, Bandes said.
“The arts community here is resourceful and creative artists have always been used to having very little,” she said. “Relying on the collection is out of necessity, but we have a wonderful collection, so this is a chance to turn it into a positive and really show people what we have.”
Students who spend time in Kresge said the decline of arts funding is not unusual.
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“Coming from Kresge, there isn’t enough funding already,” said Caitlin Blehm, an MSU studio art alumna. “It’s always been an issue. It’s not just a new issue.”
Budgeting books
Another local haven of culture is the East Lansing Public Library, 950 Abbot Road. It offers MSU students, community members and children free access to information, resources and entertainment.
But the 40 percent cut to statewide public library funding — from $10 million to $6 million — will reduce the East Lansing Public Library’s state funding from 28 cents per patron to about 18 cents, library director Sylvia Marabate said.
“Once this kind of funding is decreased, it takes a very long time to build it up again,” Marabate said.
Marabate said library staff will take five furlough days to avoid layoffs, and the book budget, which is used to buy new books and supplies, will be reduced by about $14,000 — about 8 percent.
A supplemental bill passed by the Michigan House could restore some funding to libraries and other eliminated programs, such as the Michigan Promise Scholarship, if it passes in the Senate, said state Rep. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing.
“It isn’t about whether these programs are good or bad; it is about having very little money and deciding where it is going to go,” Meadows said.
But senators have said they don’t expect the supplemental bill to make it through the Senate.
Studio art senior Mary Kopp said these cuts come at a time when cities really need a boost.
“It’s devastating from a community standpoint,” she said. “Through libraries and galleries, it’s how you can learn when you don’t have the resources or money. It can help a community come together.”
