California Arts Council is on the budget block
_____
Paul Chin, executive director of La Pe�a Cultural Center in Berkeley, which received more than $55,000 last fiscal year, said he understands the huge financial crisis legislators are facing.
But he noted that the Arts Council budget represents a relative pinprick in the overall state budget, and that the council's grants and the matching grants they attract help employ artists and others.
"Clearly it's important to have health care, care for the elderly, care for children," he said. "But I've always argued that people need to be fed spiritually."
Aware of the council's possible fate and the loss of more than 10 percent of his group's budget, Chin is preparing to cut his programs and staff, which now numbers six.
Berlin also is preparing, even though she and her staff have already accepted two pay cuts and now are all working part-time. "We have our medium contingency budget. We have a worst-case budget," she said. "We close the doors beyond that."
Herbert A. Sample Sacramento Bee July 21, 2003
