Nearly midway through the 2024 legislative session, at least four bills relating to culture and the arts are still alive.
But one measure has alarmed Hawaiʻi artists fighting off an attempt from the Legislature to slash art programs.
The proposed House bill would drastically overhaul how the state arts agency receives funding from the "percent-for-art" law.
Hawaiʻi was the first state in the U.S. to adopt the law in 1967, requiring 1% of construction or renovation costs from state buildings to go to the State Foundation on Culture and Arts, which runs the public museum.
The potential changes to the law would be "a massive cut to arts funding," according to executive director Karen Ewald.
"If that were to happen, we would have to respond accordingly by ending some programs because we just wouldn't have the money anymore," she said.
Meanwhile, other proposals would provide additional funding for the state foundation. House Bill 1939 would task the arts agency with creating an arts-for-healing program for people impacted by the Maui wildfire. House Bill 1940 would set aside special fund money for the SFCA to integrate works of art into capital improvement projects.
On the Senate side, a bill would transfer the SFCA from the Department of Accounting and General Services, which has been the arts agency's administrative support, to the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
The measures are set aside for a full floor vote on Tuesday.
Possible cuts and changes to the arts agency
The state foundation receives an average of $3.1 million from the "percent-for-art" law that's put into its "works of art" special fund. The money is used to support artists statewide through its programs, acquire artworks from local artists and support the public museum Capitol Modern.
House Bill 1807, introduced by Rep. Kyle Yamashita, went through some amendments in the House.
The introduced version would have excluded renovations from the law, but was amended in the House Culture, Arts and International Affairs Committee. The change put guardrails on the measure that would have excluded 1% of the amount for certain types of construction work like roads, bridges, landscaping, athletic fields and more.
However, the measure was amended back to its original language when it passed the House Finance Committee.
The committee, chaired by Yamashita, also included additional changes to the measure that would appropriate funds for performing arts and other school initiatives, although it's unclear how much it would cost.
Yamashita couldn't be reached for an interview but had told HPR, "Right now, the money is needed elsewhere. For example, the state currently has a repair and maintenance backlog of over $1 billion in facilities across the state. This change may not solve the backlog problem, but we need to do everything possible to prioritize our spending on the most critical needs."
Ewald said that 68% of its special fund comes from renovations of state buildings.
"The law that was enacted in 1967, there was a massive construction boom during that time. There is not now," she said. "So the large amount of our funds that we get with a special fund to support visual artists to support the museum capital modern to support contractors and arts education, will be affected."
Senate Bill 2764 originally would have nixed the state foundation's commission, but it was changed to move the arts agency and the King Kamehameha Celebration Commission from DAGS to DBEDT. In addition, the measure would require the governor to select the SFCA executive director with the advice and consent of the Senate, according to the latest version of the bill.
Ewald said the introduced version of the bill would have impacted the state foundation's federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. She added that she supports the latest draft of the bill if it doesn't impact the SFCA's funding.
"Moving agencies to other departments is serious," she said." It's not something to be taken lightly. I think there needs to be a lot more conversation on the benefits that we would get if that were to happen."
The measure drew a rally last month from over a dozen local artists. One artist had told HPR that this was the first time he had seen artists protest in the state Legislature.
The bills are set to cross over on March 7, and they would likely be heard by the Senate Transportation and Culture and the Arts Committee, chaired by Sen. Chris Lee, and the House Culture, Arts and International Affairs Committee, chaired by Rep. Adrian Tam.
