Arts Groups Protesting Mayor Nutter Budget Cuts at City Hall Today

Photo from Groundswell.

Today at noon, Groundswell, a program of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, will gather supporters at City Hall for the annual Philadelphia Arts Advocacy Day. This year they’re directing their attention to Mayor Nutter’s proposed 40-percent budget cut for the Philadelphia Cultural Fund (PCF) for fiscal year 2016.

“In 2007, Mayor Nutter made a campaign promise to increase the PCF budget to $6 million. Year after year since, not only have we not seen that increase, but we’ve had to fight back against even more cuts,” says Maud Lyon, president of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. “Our GroundSwell program is encouraging arts advocates to speak out and let City Council know that this is unacceptable, and at very minimum, we must maintain level funding for PCF.

Lyon says the mayor’s proposal—which would slash PCF’s budget by $1.3 million—wouldn’t only hurt PCF grantees, but the organizations Youth Arts Enrichment grants, which provide project support for arts education programs serving K-12 students in the Philadelphia School District.

Today’s protest will include “pop-up acts of arts and culture” throughout City Hall, and a collaborative painting project with Mural Arts. If you can’t make the demonstration, Groundswell encourages supporters to lend their voice by emailing their City Council members and tweeting #SavePHLArts throughout the month of June when the final budget will be decided.