State Appropriation:

Appropriations leadership today presented their budget (click here for details) which will be voted upon shortly.

The Connecticut Cultural Commission's portion of the budget reflects almost entirely recommendations made earlier by our sub-committee:

* the CHC remains recommended at $2,5 million (restoration of our original amount and $350,000 added on):

* the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation's $500,000 line item also survived, another good thing, as the $300,000 in our budget traditionally set aside for them is now potentially freed up for whatever new purpose we choose:

* Line item subsidies for existing institutions for the most part were protected and several additional shops added:

*. $5 million was set aside for the Governor's cultural treasures initiative, its recent political travails notwithstanding:

This is obviously good news, but the overall level of spending in the bill is far, far beyond what the Governor recommended and much negotiation remains over the next several weeks before these numbers are firm. The job for us now is to keep the budget mice at bay as best we can. We'll keep you posted.