Despite being approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis in his own proposed budget, state Senate budget writers cut $500,000 for the Florida Humanities Council from a state budget that goes into effect on July 1.
The money represents 25% of the 46-year-old nonprofit’s revenue, and the organization said it “must significantly tighten our belts” as a result.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the council must now let go of one of its 11 staffers and cut several cultural programs. Council communications director Keith Simmons told WUSF that the organization is still trying to figure out which of those programs to cut. According to WUSF, the state house version of the budget cut the council’s funding to $100,000.
In a statement, the council’s executive director Steve Seibert said that its “Speaker Series” program will be suspended and that no new applications for community walking tours will be accepted. The council is also cutting the number of its award-winning FORUM publications from three to two.
In short, the council’s biggest responsibility is to tell the stories of Florida, especially in small neighborhoods that don’t normally see lectures or historic exhibits in their neck of the woods. In Tampa Bay, the council hosted a statewide poetry contest in St. Petersburg. Past events in the aforementioned “Speaker Series” have landed at Tampa’s Sulphur Springs Museum, which serves the mostly African-American neighborhood. One of the council’s walking tours happened in Safety Harbor.
“We are notifying our community partners, libraries, museums and historical societies of these modifications,” Siebert said about any upcoming changes.
Despite the large cut, Seibert was optimistic in his statement. He made a point of the fact that the council receives a majority of its funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
“As of now, this funding is secure,” he said, adding that the council will continue to serve the state. “We remain committed to our organizational mission; to provide access to the humanities—to the stories and ideas that make us human—to all Floridians, wherever located.”
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This article appears in Jun 13-20, 2019.