Arts leader disappointed in allocation of Massachusetts' $4 billion spending package

The pandemic impacted the livelihood and careers of artists across the country. So when Massachusetts got $4 billion in federal relief, arts leaders across the state breathed a collective sigh of relief. But now, artists have accused state lawmakers of leaving them out when it comes to pandemic aid and especially failing to support artists of color. Michael Bobbit, executive director of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, spoke with GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to talk about funding for the arts. This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Arun Rath: So lay this out for us. Tell us a bit about your expectations for the bill, how much funding you expected to see, and how much the Mass Cultural Council actually got.

Michael Bobbit: Yeah. So it's it's a sort of a long, long question because our advocacy started with our desire to push for $500 million and then we pushed it back to $200 million. And then there was a COVID recovery commission formed by legislation, and we made a recommendation for $575 million. We got very excited when we saw the house version that had $125 million and then a little bit disappointed when we saw the Senate version of $75 million. But our expectation was that we would get somewhere between $75-125 [million], which was a lot of money, a whole lot of money for the sector, not as much as the $575 [million] that we had hoped for. So onward we move with our advocacy efforts. And when it went to conference, our hope was somewhere between $75-125 million. When I first saw the allocation, it said $135 million for this cultural sector. So I thought, wow, we walked away with more. But as you dug into it, you noticed that there were lots of earmarks in the allocation. 45% of the earmarks were for purposes outside of the cultural sector and 10% was for earmarks for the cultural sector. So the allocation that I'm left with from this, this money is about $60 million for a whole cultural sector of Massachusetts, which is a lot of money, and I'm super grateful for it. It's three times what my annual allocation is — but it doesn't come close to meeting the need that we have in the sector and also very confusing to see the different kinds of allocations that were added to our line item that have nothing to do with the cultural sector.

Rath: Right. So because of that, at the end of all this revising expectations downward, even then, there is a bit of sticker shock or realization that it's not as much as it even looked at first. And even, Michael, within that MASSCreative said that only 6.4% of the earmarks are going to organizations and projects specifically that serve people of color. And the goal of the funding is specifically to help serve hard hit communities. Do you have a sense of why only 6% does? Is that as small as it sounds? Is that an oversight?

Bobbit: I don't know why. I don't know how much of an oversight it was. I'm super grateful to MASSCreative for doing the assessment of the ARPA line, especially as it relates to the BIPOC community. I think that what we heard from the feds was that this money was supposed to be used to support organizations and communities that were hit hard. It's sobering to see that of the earmarks and really talking about just the earmark money. Only 6.7% of that goes to BIPOC organizations. So that's disconcerting. It certainly goes against Mass. Cultural Council's racial equity plan that we've really been working very hard to make sure that the funding we get from the state is granted out equitably. And, you know, we've been doing a lot of work to look inwardly on that. So yeah, we have a lot of work to do and will allocate the $60 million that we have — which, again, represents three times what we normally get — in the most efficient and impactful way possible.

Rath: Now the funding, correct me if I'm wrong, that was directed elsewhere as directed. Some was directed to transit and infrastructure projects. I guess that that's also important. How does it work? I mean, why does it go to those projects?

Bobbit: I mean, what I don't have an understanding of is how it relates to the cultural sector. I guess people use the transit to get to cultural events, but I'm not sure. I don't know. It could have been from some efficiencies in the accounting of it all. But it's not directly supporting the cultural sector. I think that's been a concern of my constituents that we're serving, [that they] spent a large part of this earmark money [on transit]. In fact, what is it like? $61 million is going to non-arts and culture related organizations. I'm sure the legislature had their reasons for doing it that way. I don't know why and hopefully someday we can have some conversations with them about their thinking behind it.

Rath: Can you give us a sense of what the consequences are, of what maybe could have been, if more funding had gone to artists of color? Does this mean now that disproportionately artists of color will be going out of business or more organizations that are run by people of color will have to shut their doors?

Bobbit: I don't want to project what may happen, but certainly those things you named are probabilities or possibilities. My job is to raise money from the legislature to support arts and culture organizations. And so I would do what I can to make sure that doesn't happen and continue all my advocacy in the second round of ARPA dollars, but also our annual allocation and then do what I can to get other philanthropic communities to support these organizations. But it's $60 million for a sector that is very, very large. That is the third largest sector contributing to the state's GDP. We're going to make it work as much as we can. I'm not exactly sure how we come close to helping the sector recover with the amount of money we have. We're going to do our best and like I said, we're super grateful that we have something.

Rath: And before before we go, in terms of the money that that has been allocated now, how will that go out? How soon will it take for people to get some relief?

Bobbit: I think we'll have some internal conversations and then have conversations with the sector. We've got to find out what kind of parameters exist from the federal level on this. And then it's a lot of money for us to move. Our annual allocation, as I mentioned, is about $20 million to $60 million or three times that. So there may be a need to hire more people to help us move that, to build new grant programs and then get it out. But we're going to work as fast as we can to get it out and to get it into people's bank accounts as soon as possible.