“The National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts will reopen Monday after being shuttered since Dec. 22 because of the partial government shutdown,” reports Peggy McGlone in Thursday’s (1/24) Washington Post. “The federal cultural agencies provide crucial support to museums, libraries, artists and scholars across the country, and February is a critical time for their grantmaking decisions. The independent offices, created in 1965, each had budgets of about $153 million last year. The agencies, which the Trump administration’s first two budgets tried to eliminate, will use remaining FY18 administrative funds to reopen for up to four weeks, officials said. The agencies hope to ‘minimize any interruption in the awarding of federal funds,’ according to the NEH website…. The NEA supports theaters, dance companies and music and visual arts groups in all 50 states and the District [of Columbia], including such local organizations as … the National Symphony Orchestra. It also supports arts education and community arts programs. The federal agencies have been closed and their federal workers furloughed since the government shutdown began Dec. 22…. ‘Reopening now coincides with the critical workload in mid-January through February that is necessary to award spring grants,’ ” according to the NEA and NEH websites.
Posted January 25, 2019
