State Senate to vote on governor’s budget changes Wednesday
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In strong display of support for the arts this week, the South Carolina House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to overturn Gov. Nikki Haley’s budget vetoes that would slash funding and grants for the South Carolina Arts Commission.
Funding for the Arts Commission was among $67.5 million of appropriated state funds in the 2012 budget that Haley vetoed. Other vetoed funding would provide a 2 percent raise for teachers and fund the South Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault as well as other state agencies.
Haley’s veto No. 1 removed all $3.4 million for the Arts Commission. Her veto was overturned by the House by a vote of 110-5. The House also voted 89-25 to overturn Haley’s veto No. 21, restoring $500,000 in grants to the commission.
The votes were cast the day after hundreds of local artists and art supporters gathered in front of the Statehouse in response to the Arts Commission’s funding being vetoed for the third year in a row.
Though this is not the first time the Arts Commission’s funding has been vetoed, this year the vetoes fell after the start of the fiscal year. This shut down the Arts Commission and made director Ken May and his staff immediately unemployed.
“It’s about artists being able to do what they do,” May said of the rally. “It’s about saying thank you to the people of South Carolina whose tax dollars have been invested in the arts and thank you to the legislators who have invested those dollars, we think and they think, very wisely.”
The rally was organized by Natalie Brown, director of Columbia-based circus collective Alternacirque, mostly using Facebook.
Brown said the Facebook event went viral, with more than 1,600 people replying.
“I started this rally invite on Facebook and it blew up.” Brown said. “Everybody really got together in support of the arts and the Arts Commission.”
Artists, including painters, dancers, musicians and poets, gathered on the lawn and steps of the Statehouse. Many painters set up canvases and painted images of the Statehouse, while musicians came together for impromptu songs.
Brown said the Arts Commission helped her get her business up and running. Because of that help, Brown said she was able to grow and expand her business into a prominent performance act in the Southeast.
David Phillips, a local painter, said the money that gets put into the arts doesn’t just stay with the artists. The money, Phillips said, trickles down from art supplies retailers and local businesses that buy art to display and passes through many others on its way.
“The whole community benefits from artists being able to work,” Phillips said.
The Arts Commission helps South Carolina artists become entrepreneurs and get their businesses off the ground. Local poet Al Black, a USC custodial employee who runs the poetry venue Mind Gravy, said the Arts Commission is “not about giving people fish, but teaching them how to fish.”
Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin said the artistic and creative industry provides 108,000 jobs in South Carolina and has a $13 billion annual impact on the state’s economy, bringing in $571.5 million in state tax revenue.
“To stop funding the arts is a direct swipe at economic development and job creation,” Benjamin said. “We need our legislators to step up, stand up and override this veto.”
Benjamin said that with South Carolina’s 9.1 percent unemployment rate, it doesn’t make sense to put arts jobs at risk.
The Senate will review and vote on both vetoes on Wednesday. Regardless of the outcome, South Carolina artists are optimistic about the continuing growth of the arts in the state.
“The arts have been making a huge push in the last couple of years,” Brown said. “The arts community is going to keep rocking it.”