Arts Funding in NC House & Senate Budget Proposals
The NC Senate has passed their own budget proposal for the 2024-2025 fiscal year having indicated that that there is little interest in the budget proposal passed by the NC House last week. The Senate proposal is a very basic “mini budget” which includes some of the same allocations that were in the NC House budget proposal but does not allocate any arts funding or address any arts or arts education policy.
The NC House of Representatives budget proposal for the 2024-2025 fiscal year has already been passed by that chamber, and included Arts North Carolina’s request to have the current A+ Schools of North Carolina allocation of $750,000 to recur annually from now on. However, there were no additional funds allocated for NC Arts Council grant programs, nor was a requirement for all K-5 public school students to receive both Visual and Performing Arts instruction. There was also no change included in the current distribution of Grassroots Arts Program funding, which excludes five counties from access to approximately 40% of the total funds for that program.
It is likely that the NC General Assembly will go on a recess for several weeks over the summer without reaching an agreement on changes to the FY24-FY25 budget that was passed last year. If both the Senate and House cannot agree on a compromise, then the spending plan for FY25 will remain unchanged from the two-year budget that became law in September of 2023.
Arts NC will continue our work for additional funding for NC Arts Council General Grants and for Grassroots Arts Program allocations to be distributed equitably across all 100 counties as the NC Senate and NC House try to reconcile the two budget proposals.