Northfield Arts Guild 'Lucky' As Minnesota State Arts Board Shuts Down

Amid the scramble of what’s what during the Minnesota government shutdown, Ann Mosey can pause and take solace in saying three simple words.

“We’re very lucky,” the executive director of the said on Tuesday.

The Minnesota State Arts Board closed down Friday with the majority of other state departments when the Republican-led Legislature and Gov. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, for the 2011-12 budget. Last week, a judge ruled that the arts were not an , shuttering the department during the shutdown.

The Arts Guild is in the middle of a two-year funding cycle with the State Arts Board, which provides money for general operating costs. Because the NAG’s funding for the coming year doesn’t hinge on how a budget is settled—only when—the group is relatively untouched for now, Mosey said, adding that the Guild’s cash flow is in good order.

The NAG also applies for grant money for projects from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council, a nonprofit that receives money from the state and allocates it to artists and arts groups throughout the area. State payments to SEMAC stop during the shutdown, but that, too, won’t directly affect the Arts Guild for the time being.

With a grant application in hand for SEMAC, the NAG will have to delay submitting it until the shutdown is over. The funding request is to bring in a professional director for a collaborative play with Faribault’s Paradise Center of the Arts, which is set to premiere in August or September 2012. With plenty of time until the production is scheduled to start, Mosey said as long as the two arts organizations can apply for and receive funding by the end of the year, they’d be fine.

ArtOrg, a Northfield-based organization focused on engaging communities through visual arts, will also be fine through the shutdown, said Executive Director Dave Machacek.

Both the State Arts Board and SEMAC also allocate Legacy Grant money to arts groups, derived from state sales tax, but because that money has yet to be settled in the budget, there is no money to give or anyone to cut the check, said Larry Redmond, a lobbyist for the Minnesota Citizens for the Arts.

“We were hoping this day would not come,” he said of the shutdown, adding that he’s “very confident” that Legacy Fund monies will be released to arts organizations by a bill in a special legislative session.

While Redmond says arts funding is not as essential as such things like services for vulnerable people, he said state arts funding gives access for school children, financially disadvantage residents and Alzheimer’s and dementia payments.