Gov. Ron DeSantis gave no explanation for zeroing out the $32 million in grants that were approved by state lawmakers.
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Leaders of arts organizations in Florida, many of whom have worked in the state for decades, cannot remember a governor ever eliminating all of their grant funding. Even in the lean years of the Great Recession, at least a nominal amount — say, 5 percent of the recommended total — was approved.
Established arts organizations usually know better than to overly rely on nonrecurring state dollars subject to the discretion of politicians, said Michael Tomor, executive director of the Tampa Museum of Art. But to cut funding at a time when arts organizations are still struggling to recover from the coronavirus pandemic sends a concerning message “that taxpayer dollars should not be used in support of arts and culture,” he added.
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Mr. DeSantis, a Republican, gave no explanation for zeroing out the arts grants. His office said in a statement that he made veto decisions “that are in the best interests of the State of Florida.”
In all, Mr. DeSantis vetoed nearly $950 million in proposed spending and proclaimed that the remaining $116.5 billion came in under the previous year’s budget.
Their whole methodology is not well outlined, and it’s unclear how they calculated anything. For example, they ranked Florida as having cheaper college than Wyoming, but on average college in Florida costs 3 times as much as in Wyoming?
I’m sort of wondering if the ranking is based on how much money the state has given U.S. News to rank them where they’re ranked.
Because DeSantis using money that could have otherwise been used as arts funding to pay off organizations to give Florida high education rankings would be pretty on brand for him.