In June of 1994, Governor William Donald Schaefer signed into the law the first, and to this day only, state law mandating public funding for the arts. The law, known as “The Arts Stabilization Law” guaranteed that when Maryland’s Governor, whomever that might be, must fund the budget of the Maryland State Arts Council at the previous year’s level, with an increase equal to the percentage growth in the general fund of the year. If the general fund revenues grew by 3%, then so did the budget of MSAC. As a result, the law powered Maryland to a noteworthy place of being consistently in the top of five of US states for per-capita funding for the arts. For 30 years, the state of Maryland has been a state to recognize the value of the arts in education and across our daily lives. For 30 years, the state of Maryland has said to the artists and arts administrators, “What you do matters!” For 30 years, the state of Maryland has provided unrestricted operational support for what is now 300+ nonprofit arts organizations reaching every corner of our state from Appalachia to the Atlantic Ocean and from the Mason/Dixon Line to the Potomac and lower Chesapeake Bay. The arts help us celebrate who we are as a diverse people. Arts education is critical to a well rounded education, creating thinking, reasoning, and creative citizens who know how to work together to overcome differences and move forward together.
Last week, Governor Wes Moore included in his Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Reconciliation and Financing Bill, a provision to end the Arts Stabilization law. In doing so, he puts at risk the work not just of the Kent Cultural Alliance here in Maryland’s smallest and most rural county, but the work of every county arts council and every nonprofit arts organization in our state. By killing this law, Moore puts the arts, which have enjoyed decades of strong bipartisan support from Governors Glendenning, Ehrlich, O’Malley, and Hogan, as well as from both sides of the aisle in the Maryland State House, at risk to prevailing national trends. This law has always allowed for level funding in difficult times. And the arts sector has worked with Moore’s predecessors to prove that we can carry our fair share of the loadHe is signaling that the economic impact (more than $1 billion annually) is not worth an investment of just $34 million annually out of a $67 Billion budget (0.05%). He is saying that the impact of organizations working in inner cities and through rural and agricultural communities, organizations which serve as pillars of the social infrastructure of our great state, are no longer worth the $5.30 each Maryland contributes to the arts each year, the cost of a Big Mac!
Times are tough, and state, county and local governments are struggling to balance budgets, as required by law. Cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face has never worked, and it won’t now.
Without this law, Governor Moore, and any future Governor of Maryland can ZERO out the arts budget on a whim.
Please join the Kent Cultural Alliance in Annapolis at Maryland Arts Day, on February 13, 2025. (Register at www.mdarts.org.) Long recognized as the largest and most effective lobbying day at the Maryland State House, it is time to double, no triple, our efforts to be sure that our Representatives, the Speaker of the House of Delegates, the Senate President, and the Governor understand that we will not allow them to balance our budget on the backs of the artists and arts organizations on the front lines of building Maryland’s future.
John Schratwieser is the Director of the Kent Cultural Alliance, the designated county arts council for Maryland’s smallest county. He holds a Masters Degree in Public Administration from The George Washington University. Prior to returning to Kent County in 2017, Mr. Schratwieser was the Executive Director of Maryland Citizens for the Arts, and for seven years served as the lead advocate for public funding for the arts in Maryland. Under his leadership, the arts budget grew from $13 million to $24 million. It now sits at $34 million.
Michael H C McDowell says
Well, said, John: “Last week, Governor Wes Moore included in his Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Reconciliation and Financing Bill, a provision to end the Arts Stabilization law. In doing so, he puts at risk the work not just of the Kent Cultural Alliance here in Maryland’s smallest and most rural county, but the work of every county arts council and every nonprofit arts organization in our state. By killing this law, Moore puts the arts, which have enjoyed decades of strong bipartisan support from Governors Glendenning, Ehrlich, O’Malley, and Hogan, as well as from both sides of the aisle in the Maryland State House, at risk to prevailing national trends.” I am taken aback by this cut by Gov. Moore. There is still time to preserve this. There are other budget choices and this is a tiny part of the state budget. Each Marylander taxpayer contributes only $5.34 cents a year (!), the cost, as you say (so far, under Trump!) of a Big Mac. That’s 1.4 cents a day over a year. Or 10 cents a week! Peanuts. But a major return on investment for our state. Keep up the good work. Small money well deserved and matched by private donors too.