Paul Krugman has some insightful things to say about the urgent need for federal aid for struggling states during a fiscal crisis:

[S]tate and local governments operate under fiscal rules that lead to booming spending and tax cuts when the economy is strong and the reverse when the economy is weak. This is bad governance: services are cut precisely when people need them most. It’s also bad macroeconomics: it exacerbates the business cycle….

Obama mentioned aid to state and local governments in his press conference yesterday. Indeed. This is a very quick form of fiscal stimulus, because it’s not about starting new spending, it’s about sustaining current spending. It should be done immediately.

My own experience with the state budget process has been here in NY, where Fractured Atlas has gotten some generous line items from supportive members of the legislature.  The state also provides a vital bedrock of support to arts organizations through the New York State Council on the Arts.  Because of its dependence on Wall St. for tax revenues, NY is now one of the states most threatened by the economic meltdown.

Of course, NY is not the only state facing a looming budgetary collapse.  It’s happening across the country and it’s only going to get worse.  Krugman’s one of the smartest economic minds out there, and he’s dead right about the urgent need for federal aid.  As this debate unfolds over the coming weeks or months, we should all be prepared to make some phone calls and send some emails to our elected representatives.

Theatre Development Fund’s (TDF) TAP Plus program, in partnership with the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), makes available grants of up to $5,000 for open captioning.  This service is provided in order to increase attendance by people who are hard of hearing or deaf at cultural events that are open to the public in New York State.  TAP Plus is interested in applications from all regions in New York state.

The grant guidelines and application information  are available at http://www.tdf.org/Images/tap_plus_application08-09. Fiscally sponsored projects are eligible to apply through Fractured Atlas.

Examples of projects funded:

• A theatre seeking captioning for a performance
• A literature organization offering captioning for a reading
• An outdoor festival utilizing captioning for an arts demonstration
• A television station providing captioning for public broadcasting

Fractured Atlas received some wonderful news recently when the New York State Health Foundation awarded us a $25,000 grant to support a targeted effort to enroll artists in affordable health care.

The initiative will launch later this year, and focus on areas throughout New York State, namely: Buffalo, Erie County, Saratoga, Peekskill, Brooklyn, and Queens. We’ll be working closely with local arts service organizations, including the Arts Council of Buffalo & Erie, Saratoga County Arts Council, Peekskill Arts Council, Brooklyn Arts Council, and Queens Council on the Arts to raise awareness of available plans and deliver one-on-one assistance to artists in those communities.

We’re thrilled that the New York State Health Foundation has lent their support to this project, which will make affordable health care available to thousands of uninsured artists.

I was invited to testify this afternoon before the NY State Departments of Health and Insurance on ways that the state can move towards universal coverage. These hearings are grueling affairs; today’s was scheduled to go from 9am to 8pm. Fortunately it was right across the street from my office so I cheated and got some work done while listening to the 27 testimonies that preceded mine on the live webcast. (Hooray for gov’t agencies embracing technology!)

I was impressed with a lot of the ideas emanating from both the speakers and the panel. It’ll be interesting to see how this all shakes out. Gov. Spitzer seems determined to do something big, but that’s tough to accomplish on the state level. If people are prepared to accept incremental steps that aren’t wholesale reworkings of the system, we might get something done.

Anyway, for those of you who are into this sort of thing (and I have no illusions that there are more than 3 of you), here’s a transcript of my testimony:

Good morning. I’d like to thank you for providing the opportunity for me to speak, and for including the arts in this important discussion. My name is Adam Huttler and I’m the founder and Executive Director of Fractured Atlas, which is the largest arts service organization in New York State. Fractured Atlas serves a community of artists and independent creative workers by providing a comprehensive infrastructure of support including technical assistance, fiscal sponsorship, professional development, event liability insurance, and access to affordable healthcare. We help artists hone their entrepreneurial skills in order to thrive and prosper while they advance their artistic careers.

Healthcare is a basic and fundamental need critical to everyone’s livelihood, and artists are no exception. Since our inception almost ten years ago, Fractured Atlas has been keen to recognize artists’ needs, and has been leading the charge towards providing a variety of health insurance options for New York’s diverse artist population. Nevertheless, access to affordable health insurance remains problematic for artists and independent creative workers.

According to Creative New York, a 2005 study by the Center for an Urban Future, the creative workforce in New York City alone numbers over 300,000. Approximately 30% of this population is self-employed. Like other independent workers, artists’ work patterns are sporadic and volatile. As such, artists typically lack access to the employer-sponsored health insurance plans which are the backbone of America’s healthcare system. The major performing arts unions such as Actors Equity and the Screen Actors Guild work hard to fill this gap, but in reality only a small percentage of union members quality for coverage, not to mention the tens of thousands of artists who don’t belong to a union. For these reasons, any reform proposals which involve an expansion of the employment-based model will inevitably exclude the arts and creative industries.

For the most part, arts industry professionals who have health insurance either buy it on the individual market or band together in association-based groups. The term “association” is almost a bad word when you’re talking about health insurance, but the truth is that legitimate, competent, non-profit associations like Fractured Atlas can play valuable roles as healthcare intermediaries. We provide coverage that is portable and can be maintained as an individual moves between jobs or assignments and even during periods of unemployment. We also serve as advocates on our members’ behalf, by helping them navigate their coverage options, by explaining their benefits in simple down-to-earth language, and by mediating disputes between individuals and insurance companies or providers. In addition, we have on more than one occasion negotiated special eligibility rules for sole-proprietor plans that account for the atypical employment patterns in the arts and creative industries.

Yet despite our many success stories, Fractured Atlas’s efforts to provide cost-effective health insurance options are constrained by certain aspects of the state’s health insurance regulations. As you know, groups with fewer than 50 employees in New York are subject to community rating. This rule also applies to associations in which any single member has fewer than 50 employees. Since the 8,000 New York artists in our membership are all self-employed, this means we have no hope of leveraging our numbers for improved negotiating power with the insurance companies. As a practical matter, it means those 8,000 individuals pay a penalty for their career choice in the form of much higher health insurance premiums. Considering the enormous benefits that the arts and creative industries bring to the state’s economy, this feels at times like an arbitrary and harsh punishment.

We are aware of a special designation for qualifying association plans, subject to the approval of the superintendent of insurance, which allows for normal large group rating. To our knowledge, there is only one organization in New York State that has been assigned a special class (M) designation. While it is a valuable organization which provides a great service to New York State, it isn’t a panacea. Specifically, many artists have found it difficult to meet their requirements for participation, which are designed to accommodate a broad range of industries. Providing organizations like Fractured Atlas with the same opportunity would go a long way towards leveling the playing field and providing real options for the state’s artists.

To a lesser degree, Fractured Atlas is also held back by the fact that nonprofit organizations cannot have a broker’s license under NY state insurance law. This limits our ability to serve the needs of our constituents and deprives the organization of a great opportunity to subsidize its operations at no cost to the membership.

New York is, for the time being, the cultural capital of the world. The arts and creative industries make a huge and well documented contribution to the state’s economic prosperity. However, many cities across the nation are investing in social capital to facilitate the establishment of creative communities, utilizing the arts to cultivate and sustain economic growth. As a result, more and more artists are embracing the enticing opportunities these new locations can offer them, especially in light of some special challenges that are particularly taxing upon New York’s delicate creative ecosystem. Among the most influential factors is the lack of access to affordable health insurance. Fortunately, it is within the state’s power to make a few minor adjustments, with no budget allocations required, which would dramatically improve this situation. From the standpoint of today’s subject matter, these moves would also result in a substantial increase in the ranks of the insured in New York State. Thank you for your attention to this important issue and for your commitment to the health of all New Yorkers, including artists.

I’m here in lovely downtown Schenectady, NY at the annual Arts Summit hosted by The Alliance of New York State Arts Organizations. Being the downstate snob that we NYCers tend to be, I only heard about this conference because I was invited to speak on “mobilizing artists” (a subject that consumes quite a lot of my attention these days). I’m glad I came, though, since it gave me a great perspective on the arts service infrastructure throughout NY State.

A few observations, in no particular order:

1. Kudos to Philip Morris for his amazing work on Proctor’s Theater. The Mainstage is by far the most spectacular venue in which I’ve ever appeared (albeit on a panel discussion).

2. Interesting keynote from State Assemblyman Steven Englebright, the new Chair of the Committee on Tourism, Arts, and Sports Development. He seems sincere in his belief in and support of the arts, albeit from a rather traditional, preservationist perspective. I asked him whether his peers in Albany yet understood what a powerful driver of economic development the arts can be. He was quite eloquent in articulating the intrinsic value of the arts, as he urged us not to ignore the “art for art’s sake” argument. This was a great answer for the assembled crowd, but my own experience suggests this approach is more than a little optimistic. Even when you’ve got a sincere advocate like Assemblyman Englebright (or a few others I know in Albany) he’s still got to make the case to his constituents when it comes time to justify a tax increase or budget allocation.

3. New York really is a rather rural state once you leave New York City and the surrounding counties. The vast majority of attendees are from tiny regional arts councils, most of which represent a county in upstate or Western NY. I’m used to thinking of arts councils as being rather substantial, well funded institutions, but a lot of these organizations appeared to have budgets under $1 million and only a handful of staff. Nonetheless, some great, intelligent, dedicated advocates can be found in the leadership ranks of these rural arts councils, which is a good reminder for we downstate snobs.

4. We’ve got to expand our advocacy beyond the funding issue. The leading arts advocacy organizations on the city, state, and federal levels all focus the vast majority of their time and energy on increasing public funding. As a grantee of the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs it would be hypocritical of me to complain too much about this (although I’m not afraid to say that I’m generally ambivalent about public funding for the arts). Still, fighting over budget allocations is a zero-sum game. Asking for another dollar of support for the arts means asking for a dollar more in taxes or a dollar less in other government spending. You’re bound to make enemies and there’s a limited upside.

Advocacy on other policy issues tends to be far more complex and a lot more challenging when it comes to mobilizing the arts community. But we’ve got to buckle down and do it. We can’t be afraid to tackle healthcare, urban cultural policy, community development, tax policy - all the issues that impact the context in which artists live and work. This kind of advocacy needn’t be a zero-sum game, which means we’ve got opportunities to form alliances with all sorts of non-arts constituencies facing similar challenges. There’s also the added benefit that bolstering our infrastructure interferes less with our industry’s natural workings than curatorial funding does (i.e. a rising tide lifts all ships).

5. “Mobilizing artists” is really, really hard. I began my breakout session by admitting that I don’t know how to do it, and as far as I can tell, neither does anyone else. I’m optimistic, however, that some of Fractured Atlas’s current work on civic engagement and community mapping holds some real potential to develop a replicable model.

Anyway, today it’s back to my cage in the garment district. Thanks to Judy Weiner and the Alliance for inviting me to speak and for putting on a worthwhile conference.

I’ve been following a bill in the NY State legislature which would mandate that the state arts council start making modest grants to individual artists for the purpose of procuring live-work space. The bill recently passed in both the Assembly and the Senate, which means it’ll soon be headed to the Governer’s desk for signing.

I’m jazzed about this bill for a couple of reasons. First, it’s artist-centric rather than institution-centric, which is refreshing and hopefully a sign of things to come. Second, it’s about investing in the community infrastructure, rather than purchasing “art services” for state residents.

My only concern is that there’s been no new budget appropriation yet, which means there’s a possibility (presumably slim) that funding this new program will have to come out of NYSCA’s existing budget. On balance, that’s a risk I’m willing to take.