Minnesota Libraries Gain $4.25 Million for Arts and Cultural Programs

Legislative allocation should triple the amount of programming at libraries

Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 5/21/2009

• "Incredible win for libraries," says St. Paul Friends head
• Sum is about ten percent of new arts funding
• Regional library systems will distribute funds

Thanks to some savvy lobbying and enlightened legislators, public libraries in Minnesota will get $4.25 million for arts and cultural programs in the next fiscal year, which starts July 1, as well as the fiscal year after that. The sum, which an advocate said should at least triple such programming, represents nearly ten percent of the $44.5 million allocated in the first year by the legislature; nearly half of the total will go to the State Arts Board.

“It’s an incredible win for libraries,” Peter Pearson, president of The Friends of the St. Paul Public Library, told LJ, pointing out that, “in these difficult economic times, there’s no way funding for arts and culture [at libraries] will increase through local dollars.”

State arts boost
Last November, state voters approved a constitutional amendment in which an increase in the sales tax would be dedicated to the environment and the arts, for a total this year of some $230 million. While Pearson’s group typically lobbies on local issues, this year it also launched an advocacy committee for state and federal issues, involving several local community members.

“Here was an opportunity to have libraries become part of the definition of arts,” he said, noting that advocates stressed to legislators that libraries would be a vehicle to ensure that arts funding is spread out over the state, and that libraries are the only places that offer arts and culture programming for free.

Lobbying success
The advocates approached Rep. Mary Murphy (DFL- Duluth), a longtime library supporter, proposing that libraries be allocated $3 million statewide. Murphy upped the number to $5 million in her bill. The Senate, however, offered zero to libraries, maintaining a strict limit on who could provide arts and cultural programming.

On the morning of Monday, May 18, the day the legislature had to finish the budget, the Senate had budged to $750,000, while the House had the sum of $5 million. “Murphy stuck to her guns, and got the Senate to come up to $4.25 million,” Pearson said. (Here's the final version of the bill.)

The money will be distributed using existing formulas to the 12 Minnesota Regional Library Systems. No more than 2.5 percent of funds may be used for administration. According to the bill, the funds “may be used to sponsor programs provided by regional libraries, or to provide grants to local arts and cultural heritage programs for programs in partnership with regional libraries.”

The Minnesota Library Association (MLA), which typically develops a lobbying platform before the legislative session, did not include this idea in its platform, but once the St. Paul Friends group developed its recommendation, the MLA supported it, Pearson said.