Both the Humanities Council's Cultural Heritage Development Fund and the operating budget for the Historical Commission escaped untouched in the massive budget cutting that attended the passage of the deficit reduction bill last night and seem likely to continue on present funding levels through the end of the fiscal year in June, although in this chaotic political and fiscal climate nothing is truly certain. This is an accomplishment to be proud of and stems directly from the energetic advocacy efforts many of you have made in support of both agencies in recent weeks.

Our next challenge looms already: how both CHCs will fare in the Governor's budget message for 2003-2004, due out next Tuesday. Last night's legislative action significantly reduced the state's budget deficit, but did not erase it, and Capitol observers expect the Governor to announce another significant wave of cuts, agency mergers and other attempts at economy in his budget proposals for the coming year.

We're watching the situation closely and will keep you informed as soon as we have any clarification of where we stand and what advocacy steps seem appropriate for the Coalition to take.

In the meantime,

1. It remains important to make personal contact with your local legislators, ideally as a visit to your organization. The notion of heritage support is an abstraction; your facility, your programs and your good work in your community are tangible and bring our arguments home.
2. It would be most helpful, as we wait for round 2 to start, to expand our alert list as much as possible. Please scan your own organizational and personal e-mail directories for individuals that might be willing to serve as advocates for heritage support at the Capitol, plan to forward Coalition updates and alerts to them, and make them aware of the advocacy resources available to them on the heritage Coalition website (www.ctculture.org\chdf). We have several hundred names in our combined directories at this point, but there are more than 80,000 staff members, directors, volunteers, members and donors in the heritage community overall. The more we mobilize the more powerful our position.