Culture Chronicle

Culture Budget Reprieve: New York Eases Cuts
The New York Times - July 2, 2010
By Kate Taylor; Compiled by Dave Itzkoff

The New York City cultural-budget dance has a pattern: the mayor proposes drastic cuts, cultural organizations protest, and in the end the City Council restores most of the money. This year's routine played out no differently, with cultural organizations, which had braced for huge cuts in the budget for the 2011 fiscal year, instead coming out close to where they did last year. The budget passed by the Council on Tuesday includes roughly $150 million for the Department of Cultural Affairs, compared with the $159 million that was allocated last year. (The 2010 fiscal year ended on Wednesday.) Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg had proposed a $49 million cut, but the mayor and the Council ultimately restored $40 million. "We were all in scenario-planning for doomsday," Arnold L. Lehman, above, the director of the Brooklyn Museum and chairman of the Cultural Institutions Group, said.