NEWS CENTER

It was a sprint to the finish for this year’s legislative session that ended on June 9th, but the legislation agreed and the Governor signed a new budget for Fiscal Year (FY) 22 and FY 23. We’re here to summarize the legislative session, share the key budget numbers that relate to the arts & culture sector and share about what’s next for arts & culture advocacy.

A Final Review of Bills We Were Tracking

H.B. 6119, “An Act Concerning Arts, Culture, and Tourism Funding” looked to strengthen the arts, culture, and tourism sector in Connecticut by directing additional funds into the Tourism Fund, renaming the fund to better represent the full scope of the sector and ensuring equitable funding among arts, culture, and tourism initiatives. After passing through the Commerce Committee with strong testimonial support from the arts & culture sector, this bill did not move out of the Finance Committee and remains inactive.

S.B. 146 An Act Authorizing Sports Wagering, Internet Gaming, Internet Lottery and Internet Keno was another bill we were watching. This iteration of the bill didn’t make it to the floor, but the contents of the bill merged into H.B. 6451 An Act Concerning the Authorization, Licensing and Regulation of Online Casino Gaming, Retail and Online Sports Wagering, Fantasy Contests, Keno and Online Sale of Lottery Tickets was signed into law by Governor Lamont. This will bring in new tax revenue and we will track how the legislation plans to allocate the new revenue in the future.

The Final State Budget

The budget was one of the last items decided during the legislative session and supports stable funding for the Tourism Fund as well as major new funding for the arts community. Here’s the breakdown:

	FY 22	FY 23	Total
Tourism Fund	$9.8M	$3.1M	$12.9M
Small Theaters	$3M	$3M	$6M
Performing Arts Theaters	$1.1M	$763K	$1.9M
Performing Arts Centers	$2.5M	$2.5M	$5M
Flagship Producing Theaters	$800K	$520K	$1.3M
Kids Free Summer	$15M	$0	$15M
Total	$32.2M	$9.9M	$42.1M

There are also a number of related items to the culture sector as a whole that we’d like to highlight:

	FY 22	FY 23	Total
Tourism Marketing	$7.1M	$7.9M	$15M
Connecticut Humanities	$20M	$10.7M	$30.7M
Children’s Museums	$2.5M	$2.5M	$5M
Total	$29.6M	$21.1M	$50.7M

In all, there’s over $92 million in funding for the creative sector over the next two fiscal years. We would like to thank all of our advocates for showing their support for the arts & culture industry during a time where the arts were needed most. It was an important legislative session for the recovery of the sector and the state as a whole.

What’s Next

There is still more advocacy to go! Visit our 1% for the arts page to learn more about what you can do at your local town level to support the arts through the American Rescue Plan funding coming to your local leadership.

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