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Small Arizona companies are big winners in state grants By Kerry Lengel The Republic | azcentral.com Sun Jul 7, 2013 1:35 AM Thanks to a one-time, $1 million windfall from the Legislature, the Arizona Commission on the Arts has more money to spread around in grants to non-profit groups for the 2013-14 fiscal year. But because of a change in criteria in the application process, some of the state’s most prominent arts organizations will be seeing a smaller piece of the pie. On Wednesday, July 3, after four straight years of budget cuts, the commission announced $1.8 million in grants to support museums, symphonies, theaters and arts-education programs throughout the state. They range from $1,000 for small groups such as the Tucson Guitar Society to $60,000 each for Ballet Arizona, the Musical Instrument Museum and the Tucson Symphony Society. Although the size of a company was a primary factor in past years’ grants, this year the commission focused on such criteria as fiscal management and diversity of audience and programming. As a result, major organizations, including the Phoenix Symphony, the Heard Museum and Arizona Theatre Company, saw their state support drop by half. “I’m disappointed but not surprised,” said Mark Cole, managing director of Arizona Theatre Company, which will receive $22,000 in general operating support, down from about $51,000 last year. “They opened it up, and large organizations aren’t guaranteed to get the grants the way they were before. It’s a bigger tent,” said Cole, who acknowledges that several years of deficits hurt his company under the new guidelines. One of the winners this year is Childsplay, Tempe’s professional theater for young audiences. It will receive $36,000, up from about $19,000 last year. “Childsplay was quite lucky, because we are geographically diverse,” managing director Steve Martin said. “Our programs reach into the farther rural corners of the state. “I thought that the arts commission did a really good job a year ago to explain the change in funding guidelines.” In addition to this round of grants, the commission plans $300,000 in targeted funding this August to support initiatives including public-private partnerships and an “Art Tank” program to provide seed money for innovative projects, to be selected with public input. It’s an idea that smacks both of reality-TV and the crowd-funding trend. “We want to generate some excitement and forward movement in the arts community,” said Robert C. Booker, executive director of the arts commission. “It allows us to shine a light on arts organizations that are working in an entrepreneurial manner.” The extra $1 million is a one-time allocation drawn from interest earned on the state’s rainy-day fund. An additional $1 million was slated for Arizona State Parks in the $8.8 billion budget signed by Gov. Jan Brewer on June 17. “No one intended the rainy-day fund to have more than $450 million in it,” said state Sen. Steve Farley, a Democrat from Tucson, who pushed an amendment to add the funding. “So instead of letting that (interest) money sit there, why not invest it all across the state?” Farley’s original proposal was to use all of the rainy-day interest, about $4 million, for arts and parks, and to make it an annual allocation. He said he would push for more funds next year. Reach the reporter at kerry.lengel@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4896. |