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If the Pittsburgh Opera’s controversial decision to honor Gov. Tom Corbett with a “Lifetime Achievement Award” on May 12 showed nothing else, it proved how vital funding arts education is. Because apparently, we’re suffering from an epidemic of tone-deafness.
I’ll confess: I’m not outraged, or surprised, by the Opera’s move. I abhor Corbett’s policies, but if arts groups snubbed everyone who was a jerk at their day job, well … this town would be short a couple museums. And while Corbett has pursued harrowing budget cuts elsewhere — namely in education — state funding for the arts has been stable. No surprise an arts organization wants to stay on his good side … and that of other well-heeled donors who probably voted for him.
But it’s also no surprise when those who have been hurt by cuts take exception. Especially because the Opera’s announcement struck an off-key note by singling out Corbett “for his early work as a teacher” — precisely when Pennsylvania schools are facing dire shortfalls, and balancing their budgets by cutting arts education. So as the opera held its gala for the well-heeled, hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside, rallying on behalf of the more modestly shod.
That might have been the end of it … except by then an arts leader had struck another sour note.
One day before the protest, Mitch Swain, CEO of Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, fired off an “Arts Council Advocacy Alert” about the debate. Swain wrote about Corbett’s arts-friendly budgeting, and the cultural credentials of the governor’s wife, Susan. But Swain then asserted that “anger over what is perceived as cuts to education by the Governor fails to take into consideration the fact that the previous administration used $1-billion in one-time stimulus funding to fund education and then took $800 million out of education for other uses.” As for those laid-off art teachers? Those choices are “not being made …by the Governor, but at the local level by school boards.”
That’s a little like blaming firefighters for not rescuing everyone when an arsonist torches a building. And Charlie Humphrey, the ever-outspoken head of Pittsburgh Filmmakers who helped found GPAC, noisily resigned from its board to protest Swain’s memo.
“This was pandering,” Humphrey says. “We’re not in the business of defending politicians.” While GPAC supports arts funding, he says, any time it advocates a political position, “that is discussed with the board’s advocacy committee. They weren’t consulted here.”
Swain acknowledges sending out the letter on his own, to correct “misinformation out there that indicated cuts were being made to arts funding. I felt we were presenting facts without bias, and not taking a position. I can see now how it could have been viewed differently.”
Such contrition was in short supply at the governor’s office, though. Asked by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to comment on the memo uproar, Corbett spokesman Kevin Harley struck the harshest note of all: “Mr. Humphrey, who pays himself a six-figure salary from his nonprofit arts organization, has the luxury of resigning in protest whenever he doesn’t get his way.”
It’s true: Humphrey earns more than $130,000 a year, according to Filmmakers’ records. And while quitting an unpaid board position is a luxury anyone can afford, it’s a nice change of pace to see Republicans objecting to six-figure salaries. I look forward to seeing Tom Corbett at a future drum circle.
Or not. As Swain’s memo noted, Corbett can’t be blamed for dried-up federal stimulus funds. But he can be blamed for a “no new taxes” pledge that worsens the budget crisis. Throughout this opera drama, some of the principal villains — like natural-gas drillers and other corporate types who can count on light tax burdens — have been hidden offstage, while everyone else struggles for crumbs.
“The arts community is now divided,” Humphrey says. And the debate is fundamental: With the economy struggling, and with state government in the hands of hostile conservatives, should arts groups merely protect their own turf? Or do they have a broader obligation, to rally behind the educators and activists who have long supported them?
That’s the real question raised by the Opera’s guberdämmerung, as Wagner might have called it. And it won’t be over until — well, you know the rest.
This article appears in May 23-29, 2012.
I am glad you are taking the Governor’s numbers to task. The stimulus is not to blame for our current school funding catastrophes. In 2007-2008 state education funding for PK-12 was $9.28 billion. In 2008-09, state funding for PK-12 education was $9.9 billion. Last year it was $9.09 billion. So PK-12 education funding BEFORE THE STIMULUS money (which was distributed to the states for the 2009-10 school year) was actually over $800 million more than last year’s funding. Corbett’s office is not being truthful—to say the least. The budget docs are here: ttp://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/past_budgets/4571.
You are using numbers from Rendell’s proposed budgets, not the budgets that actually passed. The document, Governor’s Executive Budget, is the proposal submitted to the General Assembly, but is then amended and enacted — usually with very different numbers. You are also mixing up the Basic Education figures with all sorts of other line items.
All right Mr. Mason, you are right, and I apologize for my error. But using the correct budget numbers we still find that the pre-stimulus K-12 budget was substantially higher than last year’s. Here are the corrected figures:
In 2008-09 (pre-stimulus), under Rendell, the state spent $9.597 billion on PK-12 education (“basic education”).
In 2011-12, under Corbett, the state spent $9.225 billion on PK-12 education (“basic education”).
So Corbett allocated $372 million LESS last year for PK-12 education than the state spent pre-stimulus in 2008-09.
Note that there is a line item within the category “PK-12 Education – Basic Education” that is called “basic education funding” and this is the line item that Corbett usually refers to when he claims that he has simply returned state education funding to pre-stimulus amounts. But there are many, many other line items in the section of the state budget entitled “PK-12 Education – Basic Education” (things like transportation, early intervention, special education, etc.) that Corbett has reduced or eliminated . So when he refers to his “basic education spending” in claims that he is not reducing state funding for PK-12 education, he is trying to trick the public into believing that he is referring to ALL state funding for PK- 12 education rather than just one line item. The PSEA reports that in February, Corbett admitted as much during a visit to Mt. Joy, PA:
“The governor was asked if the $429 million in lost state funding for schools compared to last year, meant he “cut education funding the state used to give?”
He responded: “We reduced education if you a take a look at it as a whole. But it wasn’t $800 million. … and if you listen to my words, I always talk about the basic education funding formula,” he said, also referred to as the basic education subsidy.”