When Arlington’s FY 2020 budget came to a vote in late April, the county board showed that it had been listening. The final, approved budget includes a revised plan put forth by county manager Schwartz that maintains funding for critical arts programs and buys the arts community some time to come up with alternate or additional funding sources for the future.
For the coming year, the budget maintains the full $215,810 for artist grants as well as proposed “bridge” staffing for the CostumeLab and Scene Shop. It also reinstates the poet laureate position and Pick a Poet program.
To balance the budget, the board made $4.8 million in reductions and cut some 27 full-time staff positions across multiple program areas.
This summer, Schwartz is convening a task force to determine a path forward that is financially sustainable for both the county and local arts organizations. Ideas on the table include a possible new civic art space (built for performances and other art-related gatherings) as well as proposed arts districts along 23rd Street in Crystal City and the Four Mile Run valley. County board member Katie Cristol acknowledges that time is of the essence as officials turn their gaze to the 2021 budget and its inevitable jockeying for funding.
“A year passes fast, so I do think it is important that we get started on these discussions very soon with a stakeholder task force,” she says. “The goal absolutely is to have…a more comprehensive strategy for the arts.”
“One thing that is encouraging to me,” Cristol says, “is the ingenuity we saw [in the budget process] for how to get private organizations more involved in the operations of these spaces. We’ve heard some interesting things from other jurisdictions in the region.”
The Music Center at Strathmore in Montgomery County, Maryland, is one example. It’s funded by a partnership of the state, the county, private philanthropists and the arts organizations that use it.
The arts, as famously crotchety author Kurt Vonnegut once said, offer “a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow.”
Whether and how local officials and private donors in Arlington will extend that philosophy to the soul of the community—and allocate future dollars accordingly—remains to be seen.
Kim O’Connell lives in Aurora Highlands and has been an artist-in-residence at Acadia and Shenandoah National Parks.