By Christin Nance Lazerus, Post-Tribune staff writer
Fans of the arts won't be the only ones affected by proposed budget cuts by the state to fund the
Indiana Arts Commission. Schools and students will also lose out.
Reader's Theater, presented by the Towle Theater, tours four Hammond elementary schools several times a month to help build students' reading comprehension, vocabulary and public speaking skills. The program relies on a $4,000 grant from the IAC and South Shore Arts, which could disappear with proposed cuts.
"One of the things we are speaking with our funders about is we truly believe that our theater will survive this economic crisis," said Towle managing director Jeff Casey. "But these programs are the things that will go away first, which is really unfortunate."
The IAC's budget, which totaled $4 million this year, has made it through the Indiana House of Representatives with an 8 percent cut, but it still needs to go through the Senate. The final budget numbers won't be resolved until the end of April.
South Shore Arts is already preparing for budget cuts by limiting grant proposals to current recipients only. It currently provides administrative grants to arts organizations and program grants to groups such as the Boys & Girls Clubs and Opportunity Enterprises.
"If there was a 50 percent cut, we wouldn't be able to do that. We would probably decide to eliminate project grants so we could preserve regular full-time arts organizations," South Shore Arts Executive Director John Cain said. "And our own programs would be affected."
Stimulus help not enough
Cain said the organization has always broken even, but its endowment fund took a large hit in terms of the value of its investment. In the past two years, South Shore Arts, which partners with IAC, has awarded $178,607 in grants to 30 organizations.
The IAC dealt with a 10 percent cut in funding for the current fiscal year that ends on June 30. They were forced to cut final grant payments by 3.3 percent to all recipients.
That was the only equitable way to do it, IAC Marketing Director Rex Van Zant said.
"We had weathered most of the cut administratively," Van Zant said. "When we broke the news to our partners, most of them thought it would be worse or said, 'We can work with that.' "
The economic stimulus bill passed by the U.S. Congress did provide $50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts. But Cain said Indiana wouldn't receive much more than $250,000, which wouldn't be enough to fill the funding gap.
Cain said these programs are vital to the community since school districts have had to cut back on music and arts programs in recent years.
"We're developing programs that fill a need for arts in the community," Cain said. "In the region alone, 100,000 kids are served through various forms of educational outreach."
Opportunity Enterprises arts programs show how valuable the arts are in people's lives, Cain said.
"They have a very unique program -- an extensive arts program for people with disabilities," Cain said. "They have earned income because they sell artwork, and (the funds) go back into the program."
Casey said Reader's Theater has helped kids emerge from their shells.
"Not just from our perspective, but from the teachers and administrators of those sites, everyone notices a difference," Casey said. "A child who doesn't want to stand up and introduce themselves in the beginning, that child, by the end of first month, wants to share a favorite movie or his pet's name."
"We're not teaching kids to be actors, but the fundamentals of acting come into play every day, like becoming a better interviewer for jobs and carrying on conversations."