Senate Finance Committee moves to nix New Hampshire's arts council amid budget woes

Yahoo

22-05-2025

The Capitol Center for the Arts in downtown Concord on May 21, 2025. (Photo by Dana Wormald/New Hampshire Bulletin)
Another effort to prevent New Hampshire's State Council on the Arts from being eliminated during the state budgeting process has fallen short.
New Hampshire state senators have spent the last few weeks working through the state budget. After the Senate Ways and Means Committee projected that state revenues — which have been lagging in recent years — would rebound faster than House predictions, the Senate Finance Committee has been identifying cuts made by the House that the Senate can undo. The committee recommendations so far include reversing a 3% cut to Medicaid reimbursement rates and restoring funding for developmental disability services.
However, on Wednesday, the committee didn't do the same for the State Council on the Arts, which the House eliminated in its version of the budget. The Senate Finance Committee voted, 5-3, not to restore the council during a work session Wednesday. Gov. Kelly Ayotte had included funding of roughly $1.7 million over two years for the council in her budget proposal. The council was also set to receive an additional $2 million in federal funds.
Sen. Cindy Rosenwald, a Nashua Democrat and one of the three dissenting votes on the Finance Committee, pushed for the arts council to be restored Wednesday, saying, 'the arts help drive the economy.'
Sen. David Watters, a Dover Democrat, said the arts are 'so deeply woven into the fabric of the state and always have been and (are) something that helps define our identity.'
'It supports traditional arts programs, it supports the thriving arts community all around the state,' Watters said. 'I think we should at least restore it to the governor's level.'
Republicans on the committee disagreed.
'I do think the Council of the Arts is important,' Sanborton Republican Sen. Tim Lang said. 'But in this tough budget cycle where we're balancing the needs versus the wants, a $3 million add is probably not appropriate for a want.'
Lang proposed an amendment that establishes a state fund that can accept donations. The council would become a volunteer council, and the state would appropriate $1 to the fund, a procedure mechanism to create it. He noted that many other councils in the state are voluntary.
'So the council could go out and get corporate sponsors and donations,' Lang said. 'They'll be able to use those donations to get federal matching grants, and it'd allow them to at least continue in some way, shape, or form their mission and their goal.'
Watters pushed back against the amendment. He said if the state is not putting money toward it, the arts can't complete its mission.
'If there's no funding, there's no arts council,' Watters said. 'Let's face it.'
The committee voted, 5-3, to approve Lang's amendment.
The Council on the Arts could still be restored if an amendment is introduced to the budget when the full Senate votes on it in June. If the Council on the Arts isn't restored, New Hampshire would become the only U.S. state not to have such a council, according to the National Endowment for the Arts website. New Hampshire's State Council on the Arts receives federal support from the Endowment for the Arts.
Hearing the news Wednesday, Ayotte told reporters she was disappointed in the Senate Finance Committee's recommendation. Her budget proposal, which projected state revenues would be higher than both the House and Senate estimates, pared down funding for the council but did not eliminate it entirely.
'I've been very clear: I do support the arts,' Ayotte said. 'I think it's really part of the culture of our state, but as we think about our travel and tourism and attracting people to New Hampshire, the arts are a part of our economic development as well.'