NYSTI White Paper on NYS Budget

Posted by Gail M. Burns - February 2010

WHITE PAPER: NYS THEATRE INSTITUTE IN THE 2010-11 BUDGET

The Governor‘s 2010-11 Budget slashes the NYSTI budget from $3 million to $ 1.5 million and recommends the phase out of all future State funding. The Governor’s action will result in termination of 33 State employees, loss of $1.5 million in local economic – benefits and severe curtailment of NYSTI’s work for young people and their families.

The Governor’s Budget suggests, somewhat disingenuously, that NYSTI can become wholly self supporting with revenue generated from grants, sponsorships and other private sources, in better economic times, this may provide partial support of NYSTI programs, but for now, it is merely wishful thinking.

The Legislature, in its wisdom, created the NYSTI program in 1974 and has provided unwavering support across 36 years to preserve NYSTI’s service to education and young people toward a more humane future. While NYSTI is grouped with other arts and cultural programs—an association it values—its primary mission has always been educational. NYSTI has “been there” for students and teachers offering an alternative to the often dry, cold and test-driven instruction that pervades all of education today.

NYSTI provided training in the use of the arts as classroom motivators for educators before the buzz words “professional development” were joined. Led by NYSTI .staff, teachers have learned artful teaching methods that successfully address various learning styles. NYSTI continues to provide creative strategies for engaging the full range of students from the barely literate to the academically exceptional, from the shy and introverted to the bold and outspoken, from the disengaged to the highly motivated. All of them have a place at NYSTI.

NYSTI will work with the Legislature to restore NYSTI funding to save jobs and protect its status as a valuable State-funded service to young New Yorkers everywhere.

It is important to note that funds for NYSTI come from a so-called special revenue account that does not include “hard” tax dollars, rather, the cultural education account collects small fees from county and city clerks statewide to support cultural education without spending “hard” tax dollars in the State Budget General Fund.

Now, the Governor’s Budget is poised to pilfer the greatly reduced NYSTI appropriation stating, “In 2010-11, $1.5 million is provided for NYSTI to pay for certain obligations that have already been incurred…” in fact, $483,000 of these monies will be diverted to the general fund to finance fringe benefits and indirect costs. More than 50 of NYSTI’s employees will be terminated if the Legislature accepts the Governor’s proposal.

The Governor’s refusal to bring NYSTI representatives to the table during Budget deliberations has resulted in wasteful exercises each year to prove the Legislature’s commitment to NYSTI leading to rejection of the Governor’s attempts to damage one of the Legislature’s most successful and productive cultural and educational programs.

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