Budget

The Arizona Commission on the Arts receives and administers funding from the State of Arizona and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), an agency of the federal government. The Arts Commission receives additional funding from the private Arizona ArtShare Endowment held by Arizona Community Foundation, and often receives program-specific grants and donations from various private funders.

Funding Streams

The agency’s regular funding streams and the levels of funding available through them have both changed substantially in the past 15 years, as illustrated by the graph below:


Funding Stream

Status


General Fund Appropriation: From 1970 until 2012, the Arizona Commission on the Arts received a legislative appropriation from the General Fund in the state’s budget. While the amount varied from year to year, the General Fund appropriation represented the state’s ongoing commitment to funding the arts. In 2012 the agency’s General Fund appropriation was eliminated and has yet to be reinstated.

Inactive since 2011.

 


National Endowment for the Arts: The Arizona Commission on the Arts receives funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, an agency of the federal government, through a competitive grant process. This grant must be matched 1 to 1 by the state government. While the Arts Commission consistently performs well in this highly competitive process, their annual award amount is also contingent on forces beyond the direct control of the agency, namely, the NEA’s annual budget as determined by Congress. The past three decades have seen the NEA’s annual operating budget losing ground in its share of federal discretionary spending and failing to keep pace with inflation.

Active

 


Arts Trust Fund: In 1989 Governor Rose Mofford and the State Legislature, in an effort to “advance and foster the arts in Arizona,” established the Arts Trust Fund as a supplemental statewide funding source for the arts. Since then, the Arizona Commission on the Arts has received $15 from every annual Corporation Commission filing fee. Though designed to provide supplemental funding, the Arts Trust Fund became the state’s primary means of funding the arts following the elimination of the General Fund appropriation. While this fund is relatively stable, it is still subject to fluctuations beyond the Arts Commission’s control, as it is bound to the general health of the state’s corporate sector and to the Corporation Commission’s management of reporting requirements.

Active

 


Arizona ArtShare Public/Private Endowment: The $20 million Arizona ArtShare Public Endowment was established in 1996. At its peak, interest accrued on the fund contributed over $1 million to the agency’s budget. The Endowment was swept during recession-era budget-balancing efforts in the legislature between 2009 and 2011.

Terminated

 


Special One-time Allocation: Throughout the history of the Arts Commission the Legislature have found occasion to make one-time special appropriations to the agency’s budget in support of special initiatives or simply to increase the state’s investment in arts and culture for a given fiscal year. In the absence of a General Fund appropriation, these one-time legislative appropriations have become especially important to the agency, greatly increasing the Arts Commission’s grantmaking capacity.

As the state recovered from the recession, a bipartisan effort at the State legislature led to a one-time budget allocation of an additional $1 million for Fiscal Year 2014. Drawn from interest accrued on the State’s “Rainy Day Fund,” this appropriation had a $0 impact on the State’s budget. Though the state’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget again included this additional allocation, it was not repeated in Fiscal Year 2016. For Fiscal Year 2017, the Legislature again added a rainy-day funs appropriation, this time boosting the investment to $1.5 million. The same amount was allocated again in Fiscal Year 2018, then bumped up to $2 million in Fiscal Year 2019. In Fiscal Year 2020, the Legislature again included a $2 million allocation to the Arts Commission, but this time the moneys came from the State’s General Fund (though still as a one-time appropriation).

With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020, the Legislature opted to pass a “skinny budget” for Fiscal Year 2021. This budget did not include funding for the Arts Commission. The agency was again left out of the State’s Fiscal Year 2022 budget. (In both years, the Governor allocated $2 million in State-managed Federal relief and recovery dollars to the agency.)

In Fiscal Year 2023, the State’s budget included an historic one-time appropriation of $5 million for the Arizona Commission on the Arts. This investment was repeated in Fiscal Year 2024.


Intermittent

Funding the Arts in Fiscal Year 2025

In Fiscal Year 2025 (July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025, a one-time legislative appropriation of $2 million comprised 43% of the Arts Commission’s total budget.

The agency dedicated 51.8% of its total FY2025  budget to grantmaking, delivering over $2.6 million in grants to nonprofit arts organizations, programs, and creative workers throughout the state. Of that $2.6 million, 80% was awarded to nonprofit arts organizations in the form of general operating support.

For more information on where these grants were awarded, visit https://azarts.gov/news/fiscal-year-2025-grantees/.

Looking Ahead to Fiscal Year 2026

Arizona’s Legislature will work throughout the Spring of 2025 to pass a balanced budget for FY2026, which begins on July 1. As the Arizona Commission on the Arts was removed from the State’s General Fund in FY2012, there is no guaranteed appropriation for the agency. One must be added through the legislative budget process. This has happened in nine of the past 14 years.