NH spends $230,000 in stimulus on art programs

The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts has handed out $230,000 in federal stimulus money to help preserve jobs in the arts. The money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is the first round of $293,100 in total arts funding for the Granite State under the $787 billion stimulus package.

The Arts Council claims that the money will save 42 jobs at 12 music, theater, and visual arts and crafts organization throughout the state. The Governor and Council approved the grants last week:

• Arts Alliance of Northern New Hampshire, Littleton, $20,000
• The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire, $20,000
• Friends of the Arts Plymouth, $20,000
• Friends of the Colonial, Bethlehem, $20,000
• Haverhill Heritage, Inc., Haverhill, $20,000
• League of New Hampshire Craftsmen, Concord, $20,000
• Monadnock Music, Peterborough, $20,000
• N.H. Theatre Project, Portsmouth, $20,000
• North Country Center for the Arts, Lincoln, $20,000
• Prescott Park Arts Festival, Portsmouth, $20,000
• Saint Kieran Community Center, Berlin, $10,000
• Sharon Arts Center, Sharon, $20,000

This round of arts funding also includes a $50,000 grant to the Currier Museum in Manchester from the National Endowment for the Arts designed to support job retention in the arts workforce.

A report last week from New Hampshire's Office of Economic Stimulus found that so far the stimulus has created or saved just over 3,000 jobs throughout New Hampshire, almost all in the public sector. That's well behind White House projection of 16,000 jobs for the state, even though New Hampshire has spent roughly half of the federal money available. State stimulus director Orville "Bud" Fitch told the Legislative Fiscal Committee last week that he actually expects the job total to drop when the next report comes out in January because funding for many of this summer's construction jobs will have ceased.

The arts grants average just under $5,500 for each job that the Arts Council claims to save. Jane Eklund is the Programs Information Officer with the State Council on the Arts. She says each organization had to identify how many jobs would be supported by the grants when it applied for the federal money.

"Each fund a permanent position, or artists that the organization is contracting with," Eklund said. "Some are full-time, some are part-time, some make of these grants turn part-time positions into full-time."

Eklund explains that the Arts Council will hand out the remaining federal grant money later, but that "this is the bulk of it."