In Monday’s (5/17) New York Times, Robin Pogrebin writes, “It has become a New York version of Washington’s cherry blossoms: the springtime tussle over the city’s culture budget. The mayor puts forward his plan for the coming fiscal year, as he did on May 6; arts institutions insist they will be ruined by the cuts to their allocations; and the City Council puts in additional funds—sometimes more than the mayor has taken out—to ease the pain. This year, however, the doomsayers may have legitimate reason to fear the worst. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s $63 billion budget for fiscal year 2011, which starts July 1, calls for a 31 percent reduction in financing for arts groups and a 25 percent cut for libraries—steeper than any such measures he has proposed at this stage of the budget cycle in the last eight years. And the City Council will most likely have to draw from a smaller pool of funds to help make up the difference than it has in the past. … The budget will not become final until its details are hashed out between the mayor and the council between now and the end of June. But institutions are already steeling themselves to make do with much less.”
Posted May 17, 2010
