Arts organizations in South Florida grapple with DeSantis' cuts in funding
FORT LAUDERDALE - With Florida's new state budget in effect, arts organizations all over the state and in South Florida are coming to grips with grant cuts
Governor Ron DeSantis cut $30 million in funding for arts and cultural organizations which took effect July 1st under the new state budget.
Art Serve, a 28,000-square-foot Fort Lauderdale facility that hosts 125 thousand people a year, lost $150,000 in state funding.
It offers space for artists and nonprofit groups as well as a gallery and two museums. Anyone can sign up for dance or music lessons.
Julian Castro is an abstract artist who has a studio and sells his work at Art Serve.
"I tell everyone the arts are like how you feel when you are in a hospital as opposed to how you feel at an art museum."
He doesn't know how the cuts may affect him. Art Serve CEO Jason Hughes is figuring that out.
"I have to look at cutting staff, rising rent, reducing events. We are going after private donors but so is everybody else," he says.
Chris Baker runs a business within Art Serve creating content for nonprofits, but he's lost half of his business because the nonprofits he works for lost their grant funding.
To make up for the losses, he and his partner have to complete projects on their own time.
"It's taking away our resources and preventing us from getting more customers," he says.
Jason Hughes says everyone needs to be involved to save the arts.
"The average person, contact your state representative. Let them know you support the arts and realize everything you do is touched by art."