It was a good year for the arts at the Utah Legislature, according to Julie Fisher, director of the Department of Heritage and Arts. Of course, those who didn\u2019t get funded didn\u2019t feel the love quite so much.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere really is no fairness in this,\u201d Fisher reminded attendees at the Utah Cultural Alliance legislative wrap-up meeting Monday at the Rio Grande Depot.<\/p>\n
Representative Becky Edwards’ bill to name Spiral Jetty the State Work of Art passed the House, but did not receive a vote in Senate, so did not pass. Jim Dabakis\u2019 Arts and Cultural Education Spending bill, which would have required a school district, charter school, and institution of higher education to
\nspend a certain amount of state funds on arts and cultural education, also failed in the Senate.<\/p>\n
Other arts-related bills were more successful. Bills that passed and are now on the governor\u2019s desk awaiting a signature are: Brian Shiozawa\u2019s SB0137, which allows counties to impose a sales and use tax to fund publicly owned recreational, zoological, botanical and cultural institutions (similar to Salt Lake County\u2019s ZAP tax); Brian Wilson\u2019s House Bill, which makes it more difficult to create historic districts; and two amendment bills that will be of more interest to staff at arts organizations than the general public\u2014 one that amends the requirements for obtaining a charitable solicitation license, and another that affects incentives for state-approved production by a motion picture company.<\/p>\n
Happy organizations for Fiscal Year 2017 include:<\/strong><\/p>\n Alive! Exhibit at the Leonardo: $200,000 total from 2 bills 1x<\/p>\n Amazing Earthfest: $10,000 1x<\/p>\n American Festival Chorus: $50,000 1x<\/p>\n BTSALP (Beverly T. Sorenson Arts Learning Program): 5 million ongoing + 750,000 1x: Every elementary school in the state gets once-weekly instruction from a professional in art, music, dance or drama.<\/p>\n Harvey Harris Cluff House: $30,000 1x<\/p>\n Competitive Grant Program for Cultural Activities $100,000 ongoing + $350,000 1x (This money goes to Arts and Museums. Fisher says $450,000 will be put into a competitive process, the details haven\u2019t been worked out, but it won\u2019t all go to one organization.)<\/p>\n Desert Star Theater: $100,000 1x<\/p>\n GIGI\u2019s Playhouse: $15,000 1x ( Down Syndrome Achievement Center)<\/p>\n Hale Theatre: $100,000 1x<\/p>\n Hill Aerospace Museum: $150,000 1x<\/p>\n Historic Festivals: $25,000 1x<\/p>\n Innovation International Choreographic Festival: $100,000 (Ballet West) 1x<\/p>\n Reuben Clark Historic Farm: $35,000 1x<\/p>\n Living Planet Aquarium: $200,000 1x<\/p>\n Moab Music Festival: $25,000<\/p>\n Natural History Museum: $200,000 1x<\/p>\n Odyssey Dance Theater: $100,000 1x<\/p>\n POPS (Professional Outreach Programs to Schools \u2013 connects professional arts organizations\u2019 education programs with schools across the state (typically Utah Symphony and Utah Opera.) $500,000 ongoing + $125,000 1x for Resident Artist Programs.<\/p>\n Salt Lake County Children\u2019s Theatre: $15,000 1x<\/p>\n Sports Hall of Fame $58,000: 1x<\/p>\n Sundance: $500,000 1x<\/p>\n Thanksgiving Point Biosphere: $750,000 1x<\/p>\n Topaz Museum: $50,000 1x<\/p>\n Tuacahn: $100,000 total from 2 bills 1x<\/p>\n Utah Arts Festival: $150,000 1x<\/p>\n Utah Humanities: $35,000 ongoing + $50,000 1x<\/p>\n Utah Shakespearean Festival: $25,000 1x<\/p>\n UVU Performing Arts Building: 32 million over 3 years<\/p>\n Utah Symphony Tour ($300,000) was funded for 2016 \u201cbecause they need their money right away.\u201d<\/p>\n Wendover Museum: $400,000 1x<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a good year for the arts at the Utah Legislature, according to Julie Fisher, director of the Department of Heritage and Arts. Of course, those who didn\u2019t get funded didn\u2019t feel the love quite so much. \u201cThere really is no fairness in this,\u201d Fisher reminded attendees […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":844,"featured_media":32766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-bytes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/SPIRALLICENSE.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-26 00:20:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/844"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32760"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32771,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32760\/revisions\/32771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}