KCMETROPOLIS.org
Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts

TAKE ACTION NOW!

As the Kansas Legislature is shaping its budget bill this week, the Kansas Arts Commission is facing a serious cut to its Fiscal Year 2011 budget.

If the House bill passes, the Kansas Arts Commission's reduction of state general funds will be more than 50% since Fiscal Year 2009. That cut will absolutely impact organizations and the people of Kansas -- just when organizations, communities and artists across state badly need support.

Act now!

This includes board members, audience members, artists, arts administrators and everyone who cares about the arts in Kansas.

Call or email your legislators today and tell them to:

• Pass the Senate's budget bill, which does not unfairly target the Kansas Arts Commission.

• The arts are an economic driver -- for every $1 invested in the arts, $9 are generated for the economy in Kansas. If grants to organizations and artists are cut, jobs and spending will be reduced dramatically, reducing state income even further.

• Kansans value the arts -- more people are engaged in the arts in Kansas than in any other state and they vote.

• The arts are vital to communities. The state must support arts programs in the areas that need them most, which include rural communities, and cutting Kansas Arts Commission's programs impact rural and poor areas disproportionately.