Heart of Art—Meeting with Assembly Member Hadwick
This article originally published in the Ledger Dispatch Newspaper on May 9th, 2025. Click here to view the article on the Ledger Dispatch page or read below.
By Meghan Joy “Mojo” O’Keefe
On April 23rd, I had the honor of attending a meeting with California Assembly Member Heather Hadwick in Sacramento. I was joined by leaders of the Nevada, Shasta, and Glenn County Arts Councils, along with youth, artists, and Teaching Artists from our respective communities. Together, we served as one of dozens of teams who met with Senators and Assembly Members throughout the state offices on Arts Advocacy Day, held annually on the fourth Wednesday of April (Arts, Culture, and Creativity Month). This was the Amador County Arts Council (Amador Arts) ‘s third time participating in this collective work.
With support from California Advocates for the Arts (501c4) and California for the Arts (501c3), hundreds of multi-generational Californians met in Sacramento to ask legislators to allocate more funding to the arts.
While California has the fourth-largest economy in the world and the largest economy in the United States, our great state ranks 35th in public funding for the arts. This is far below Minnesota, Florida, Tennessee, and other states where public funding for the arts is more than $2.00 per person. Not surprisingly, the state of New York, renowned for its arts sector in similar ways to California, spends more than $5 on the arts per capita. In contrast, California spends $0.53 on the arts per resident, but remains the number one state for arts jobs, with the creative sector driving 7.5% of the state’s economy. California’s state of the arts is underfunded and recovering from the recent cuts at the beginning of this fiscal year.
Thus, our primary talking point with Assembly Member Hadwick:
Restore the $5 million cut from the California Arts Council at the beginning of fiscal year 2024-25.
It was my honor to convey the story of the arts in Amador County to Hadwick and other lawmakers as they prepare to approve the final budget for the approaching fiscal year. The $5 million cut from the California Arts Council at the beginning of the current fiscal year has had a domino effect across the state, destroying real jobs for local artists. Right here in Amador County, Amador Arts—the designated partner to the state since 1982—has gone from 11 employees to one due to this cut to the California Arts Council.
What were those employees doing? They were all rural Professional Artists, Teaching Artists, and emerging Arts Administrators driven to bring the arts to everyone in Amador County. They were teaching music, movement, poetry, theatre, and visual arts classes, serving as local arts journalists, designing original media promoting the benefits of the arts, infusing suicide prevention efforts with arts and cultural practices, teaching professional skills to teens, producing exhibits, managing our website, helping young adult aritsts grow, and educating 2100 youth annually.
When the $5 million was cut, the California Arts Council was forced to:
- Reduce funding to existing grantees
- Limit the number of grants an organization can receive
- Award higher-ranked applicants only (in past years, ranks as low as 3 out of 6 received partial funding)
Upon learning about the real-world impacts of this budget cut in Amador County, Hadwick expressed appreciation and awe, referring to the $5 million as “budget dust”.
In all of my meetings on Arts Advocacy Day, the legislators seemed surprised that we had such a small request. This may be a hopeful sign. However, the Coalition of County Arts Agencies feels this restoration is a long shot and highly unlikely. There will be a budget hearing on May 14th, and Arts Leaders from all over the state will testify in Sacramento.
SOURCES: California Arts Advocates, U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, The Otis Report, National Assembly of State Arts Agencies,
Amador County Arts Council (501c3) was established in 1982 as a Designated Local Partner to the California Arts Council to catalyze arts, culture, and creativity for all people in Amador County by promoting the arts, helping artists and arts organizations, collecting arts data, and administering the Amador Poetry Out Loud competition. Monday through Thursday from 8 AM to 4 PM, our public office offers free arts supplies, business of arts resources, and technical assistance. Visit our website to learn more: amadorarts.org or contact us at (209) 256-8166.
