State Arts Group Reportedly Withdraws NEA Proposition

An association of state arts councils that floated a controversial plan to split up the National Endowment for the Arts and hand over most of its money to state art agencies distanced itself from the plan Friday, with top officials reportedly telling arts supporters the proposal had been “withdrawn.”

The executive director of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, Jonathan Katz, was reportedly away from the organization’s Washington headquarters on Friday, and most of Katz’s top aides were said to be unavailable.

But it was learned that a telephone conference call involving the group’s five-member executive committee ended late Thursday with a consensus that the controversial plan should be withdrawn from consideration and that the group is officially opposed to a legislative proposal based on it that was made Wednesday by two Republican congressmen.

The national assembly is one of 17 arts groups that are scheduled to participate in meeting starting Tuesday on Capitol Hill to try to develop a consensus solution to the NEA’s political difficulties. Distancing itself from the controversial plan to break up the agency--or abandoning the effort completely--had been urged on the assembly by key arts supporters for the last several days.

In a memo--obtained by reporters last week--that represented itself as summarizing the national assembly’s position, the organization’s board advocated shifting 60% of all NEA money to state arts councils--triple the proportion now sent to them.

The proposal could radically alter the system of public arts funding throughout the United States.

Derek Gordon, director of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, said the national assembly executive committee concluded that it was inappropriate to propose any formula to reapportion the NEA budget. “To even discuss that percentage is to accept the fact that the endowment would have to be changed,” said Gordon, an executive committee member.

“I think any discussion of percentage would be inappropriate. This is a very sensitive subject and it’s one we are all very concerned about. I think there has been too much misunderstanding and misinterpretation already.”

Reps. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.) and Tom Coleman (R-Mo.) proposed that the NEA’s $171.5 million budget be split up exactly as proposed in the national assembly formula--with restrictions on the kinds of art NEA can support. The GOP plan was almost identical to the national assembly proposal described in a memorandum last week written by written by Mary Hayes, director of the New York State Council on the Arts.

But Friday morning, the national assembly appeared to be taking pains to distance itself from the plan originally attributed to it. Gordon said the Hays memo that created the controversy misstated decisions made by the national assembly board and characterized as a proposal for legislative consideration a discussion that had been far more general, less final and less specific.

“The board of NASAA did not make a proposal,” said Gordon. “We firmly believe that a strong and healthy NEA is what’s best for the arts. The language of the memo perhaps does not fully convey the context of the discussion. There is a considerable amount of misinterpretation, even in that memo.”