WILDER KILLS PLAN TO DROP ARTS PANEL

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, January 18, 1992                   TAG: 9201180324
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By JEFF DeBELL
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
WILDER KILLS PLAN TO DROP ARTS PANEL
Confronted by a groundswell of popular and legislative opposition, Gov. Douglas Wilder has dropped his plan to abolish the Virginia Commission for the Arts and turn its work over to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Instead, Wilder will propose a budget amendment making the commission an independent agency with a staff of one and an annual budget of $500,000.
Not satisfied with the governor's turnabout, Del. Marian Van Landingham of Alexandria will introduce legislation restoring commission funding to its current level of $1.5 million per annum.
Van Landingham, who is chairwoman of the Governor's Task Force for the Arts, also will introduce legislation clarifying the commission's status and purpose and setting an eventual funding goal of $1 per capita, or about $6.3 million.
Meanwhile, letters supporting the commission will start going to legislators and government officials in a campaign coordinated by the Roanoke-based Arts Council of the Blue Ridge.
The commission disperses state and federal funds to artists and arts organizations around the state, though its capacity for doing so has been sharply diminished by recent state spending cutbacks. Its appropriation has dropped from a high of $5.3 million in 1989-90 to $1.5 million for fiscal 1992.
Wilder's proposed abolition of the commission was part of his latest effort to reduce state spending. It met immediate opposition from arts professionals and patrons, many of whom turned out to lobby for the commission at legislative committee hearings and in the halls and offices of the General Assembly.
The governor's proposal also attracted a threat from the National Endowment for the Arts, which said Virginia would not qualify for important federal arts funding if the commission were abolished and its duties transferred to the state museum.
At current levels, that would mean the loss of some $530,000 in money from the NEA.
Van Landingham said Wilder's new plan would not qualify for the federal money because commission staffing would be inadequate to meet NEA guidelines. That is why she will propose legislation restoring funding to the current level, enough to maintain the commission's staff of six.
In a telephone interview Friday, she said she expected from one-half to two-thirds of the House to sign on as co-sponsors of the two bills.
Sally Rugaber, chairwoman of the Arts Council of the Blue Ridge, said the letters on behalf of the commission will focus not only on the need for the commission but for adequate funding.
"It doesn't seem to make much sense to reinstate it but not give it enough money to be effective," Rugaber said Friday.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB