Pennsylvania budget includes $1 million increase in state arts funding

Arts advocates in Pittsburgh and across Pennsylvania are celebrating the first increase in state arts funding since 2010.

The $50.8 billion budget approved this week by legislators in Harrisburg includes about $10.6 million for arts grants as administered by Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, which now does business as Pennsylvania Creative Industries. That’s about .02% of the total budget — but it’s also $1 million more than the arts received in any of the past 16 years.

“It’s going to make a huge difference to arts organizations, artists, and creative professionals across the state,” said Kelley Gibson, board president of the nonprofit Creative Pennsylvania and president of the Cultural Alliance of York.
 
Legislators earmarked the added funds for arts and culture groups that work in historically underserved communities.

“The $1 million increase in this year’s budget is a big win for the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and signifies the Governor and legislature’s confidence in — and support for — our agency’s long-term vision to build a comprehensive creative industry for Pennsylvania,” said PCA spokesperson Norah Johnson in a written statement. “PCA looks forward to expanding funding opportunities to support the Commonwealth’s arts and cultural organizations.”

Arts advocates had sought an additional $5 million over last year’s budget, funds Gibson said would have just about made up for the spending power lost to inflation over the past 16 years.

But Patrick Fisher, executive director of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council (GPAC), called the increase “a victory” not only because of the funds but also because of how arts advocates mobilized “a coordinated and sustained effort across the state” in a difficult budget year.

Both Gibson and Fisher also credited state Sen. Jay Costa, a Forest Hills Democrat and co-chair of the General Assembly’s Arts and Culture Caucus, for championing the increase in the arts line item.

Costa acknowledged that a $5 million increase “was not going to be doable” in a challenging budget year. But, he added, “We thought it was important, particularly as it relates to disadvantaged communities,” that there be some increase in funding.

Costa credited “community conversations” with constituents for helping to build support for the increase, and said legislators would follow up with the PCI about how the funds will be allocated.

The budget increase is the second win for arts advocates in efforts to mitigate the changes at the agency that rebranded last year as Pennsylvania Creative Industries, powered by Pennsylvania Council for the Arts.

The rebranding came with a new focus on economic and workforce development.

PCI announced the 2025-26 fiscal year would be the last for its longstanding practice of working with regional partners like GPAC to distribute funds.

It also announced the end of long-running programs like Arts in Education, which brought professional artists into classrooms and other community settings, and Preserving Diverse Cultures, which supports programs in historically underserved communities, including communities of Black, indigenous and people of color. And it elected to phase out a program that aided arts groups with budgets under $100,000.

All the changes “just really woke up the creative community across the state,” said Gibson. Creative Pennsylvania helped mobilize a coalition of more than 100 arts groups to get citizens to push their legislators for more funds.

In June, the PCI board voted to create a new $1 million program for groups with smaller budgets, funded from the agency’s existing grants budget of $9.59 million. Groups in Pittsburgh who had benefited from the canceled program included Art All Night, the Millvale Music Festival, Pittonkatonk and the Pittsburgh Lesbian and Gay Film Society.

This week’s $1 million line-item increase might have required an even bigger lift.

“This was a tough budget year,” Gibson said. “We were told many times this wasn’t going to be the year. But we wouldn’t take that as an answer.”

Gibson said the rules around spending the added funds seemed to overlap with the mission of the canceled Preserving Diverse Cultures program. But she said advocates planned to work with PCI on shaping a plan to spend the added funds, with the goal of restoring programs the PCI eliminated during its restructuring.

Costa said legislators planned to do the same.