This afternoon, the Massachusetts Senate passed a budget amendment to fund the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) at $15 million, with strong bipartisan support. Your advocacy effectively reversed a proposed $1 million cut to a $1 million increase in state arts funding in the Senate budget. The Senate’s vote on the MCC amendment gives us strong footing going into the final stages of the state budget process.

Thank you to all the arts and cultural leaders and supporters that reached out to your senators asking them to make arts funding a priority. Thank you to our senators for standing up for the creative community and especially to Senator Eric Lesser for filing the amendment and to Senate President Stand Rosenberg and Senate Ways and Means Chairwoman Karen Spilka for bringing the amendment to the Senate floor for a vote. 

Send a thank you note to your senator.

Since January, your advocacy hasn’t gone unnoticed by the State House:

• Arts and cultural supporters sent 3,105 emails to the State Legislature showing them that arts matter in Massachusetts.
• The creative community recruited a bipartisan set of 105 representatives and 27 senators a total of 132 out of 200 state legislators to sign on to amendments calling for an increase to the MCC budget.

While we’ve reached a benchmark, we still have more to do as the budget process continues. The House and Senate are setting up a conference committee to reconcile the differences between the House budget for the MCC of $12 million and Senate budget of $15 million.

Stay tuned for what’s next and thanks again for making your voice heard.