For Immediate Release: PA Arts Community Demands PA Arts Council Pause Drastic Cuts; Calls on General Assembly to Increase Arts Grants by $5 Million to Save Programs
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania –
A coalition over 100 PA-based arts organizations, artists, and creatives led by Creative Pennsylvania are demanding that the PA Arts Council, as governing body of Pennsylvania Creative Industries, pause all planned regional arts partnership terminations, arts programs and grant cuts for FY26-27. In addition, they are requesting that the General Assembly approve a $5 million increase in the state budget to allow for traditional grants and partnerships to be continued and new creative placemaking initiatives to be launched. A draft FY 26-27 budget breakdown can be found at www.creative-pennsylvana.org
The Council on the Arts recently announced a new strategic direction centered heavily on only supporting arts that generate profits and economic development, an unprecedented shift that moves the agency away from its original mission: supporting the arts as a public good that enriches the cultural lives in communities across the state.
“Without a course correction, many organizations may be forced to reduce critical operating support, scale back programming, or even close their doors,” stated Kelley Gibson, Board Chair for the statewide advocacy and arts service organization Creative Pennsylvania. “The $9.59 million arts grants line item in the state budget is being mis-directed to non-arts initiatives, and will cost 500 artists their jobs around the state if these changes are allowed to go through.”
Established with unanimous, bipartisan support in 1965, the arts Council rebranded its agency as Pennsylvania Creative Industries in late 2025 and released a new strategic framework organized around five areas: asset development, workforce development, community development, visibility, and policy. New grant programs were launched to focus on economic development while grants, reaching hundreds of arts organizations across every county in Pennsylvania, and to small to mid-size arts organizations and long-standing community grant partnerships were being terminated.
This new strategic framework contradicts the feedback provided by over 800 arts groups that completed a PCA survey in 2024. The survey’s findings contradict the drastic changes to terminate these partnerships and grant programs, many done without votes by the Arts Council, and omplemented by Council staff without a clear understanding of the harms to the arts and culture sector. In a recent blog post detailing the research process and the mismatch of the final strategic direction with the findings, Patrick Fisher, CEO of Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, states; “The engagement process was not designed to discover a direction. It was designed to validate one that had already been chosen.”
“Grants to fuel creative business, workforce, placemaking, and innovation are needed and wanted throughout Pennsylvania, “states Mitch Swain, Board Director of Creative Pennsylvania. “Grants to support arts organizations, empower artists, and fuel the folk and traditional arts are also critical. The $5 millionincrease to a state arts appropriation that has been flat for over a decade ensures a “both and” approach.”
Residents of Pennsylvania are encouraged to stand up for the arts in PA by contacting their legislators through our online action center https://www.creative-pennsylvania.org/action-center
Creative Pennsylvania, formerly known as Citizens for the Arts in PA, is a statewide voice, an essential partner, an important information source, and effective skills-building resource to artists, creatives, and arts organizations of all sizes and disciplines across the state of Pennsylvania. Through collaboration and advocacy we ensure artists, creative businesses, and cultural organizations have the resources and support they need to thrive. Contact us at www.creative-pennsylvania.org
###
