A 59-year-old program that pays for art in public spaces is facing significant changes and budget cuts under a bill being considered Tuesday in the Senate.

House Bill 1807 would change the program in which 1% of the costs of public construction projects are used for art in public spaces. The measure would limit the program to new construction only and eliminate it being used for renovation projects. Most state projects involve fixing up existing buildings, not building new ones, so this would considerably reduce arts funding.

The bill also suggests that no further artwork needs to be purchased by the state, noting that the state “possesses a surplus of artwork in storage for current and future uses.”

The bill was approved by the House in March and has moved to the Senate. Its sponsor is Rep. Kyle Yamashita, chair of the House Finance Committee, who represents Maui’s District 12.

The Senate’s Transportation and Culture and the Arts Committee is scheduled to hold a public hearing on the bill at 3 p.m. Tuesday.

The popular annual Kamehameha Day celebration and parades held statewide may be on the chopping block as well, amid cost-cutting pressures caused by the Maui fire.

The State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, the state’s primary arts funding agency which oversees the celebration, also had been targeted for major cutbacks in both the House and Senate.

Under one proposal that appears to have stalled, House Bill 2565, introduced by Rep. Daniel Holt, the commission that oversees the foundation would be eliminated and the governor would appoint the executive director who would have to be approved by the Senate.

Karen Ewald, the executive director of the State Foundation On Culture and the Arts, says the cuts being proposed are potentially devastating, with the foundation possibly losing up to 70% of its income, including some $50,000 to $60,000 each year that is used to support the Kamehameha festival.

“This is a critical bill that would cut arts funding dramatically and reverberate negatively around the state for years and years,” Ewald said. “It would have a huge impact if it were to happen.”

She said that state support for arts education in public schools, grants to artists and purchases of public art would all be curtailed. She said she expected that the state’s art museum could be shut down.

As to the Kamehameha parades, “that wouldn’t happen anymore,” she said. “We wouldn’t be able to fund them.”

The commission’s annual budget for fiscal 2024 includes about $800,000 in state funds, $907,500 from the federal National Endowment for the Arts and about $5.7 million from the special fund, which is the 1% money, for a total of about $7.4 million, according to Ewald.

Hundreds of artists, actors, dancers, musicians and museum enthusiasts have rallied in defense of the foundation and the cut to the 1% for arts fund, testifying against the proposed legislation and saying that extreme cuts could alter Hawaii’s cultural fabric. They include the Kauai Museum, Maui Dance Council, Hawaii Craftsmen, Kahilu Theatre Foundation and the Maui Arts and Cultural Center.

“The overarching purpose of this fund is to chronicle Hawaii’s history, its present, and future through the arts – all of the arts,” wrote Beth-Ann Kozlovich, executive director of the Hawaii Arts Alliance. “This also means supporting arts education to grow our current and future artists now children or as yet unborn. The fund’s purpose is far more than even the important function of collecting Hawaii art that can be seen in state buildings but to support all forms of the arts that can mirror and record the ongoing changes in thought, approach to issues and actions that reflect those changes through time.”

Artist and art instructor Erik Sullivan testified in indignation that lawmakers think Hawaii already has too much art.

“The assertion that the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts (SFCA) has ‘enough works of art’ and that there is ‘no need to acquire more art for the state collection’ is shortsighted,” Sullivan wrote. “Art is not a commodity to be accumulated until a certain quota is met; it is a living, evolving expression of our society and its values.”

“Please do not cut funds for Arts and Culture,” wrote painter Doug Young. “They are the backbone of Hawaii nei.”

It’s not clear who is pushing for the changes in the state’s art funding budget, but some of the pressure is likely coming as a result of the huge costs of rebuilding in Maui after the catastrophic fire in August that killed 101 people and damaged or destroyed more than 2,000 homes and much of West Maui’s critical infrastructure. With that in mind, Senate Ways and Means Chairman Donovan Dela Cruz, who represents Wahiawa on Oahu, instructed state departments to prepare to make painful cuts of 10% to 15%.

But lawmakers have recently said the financial hit may not be as devastating as they originally feared. Last week Yamashita said the state was projecting a $1.34 billion surplus that would cover the estimated $1 billion needed to help finance the Maui recovery effort. The state, meanwhile, has a record $1.5 billion in its Emergency and Budget Reserve Fund, known as the Rainy Day fund, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported on Sunday.

There has been some management turmoil at the foundation in the past two years. Long-time executive director Jonathan Johnson left the job in the summer of 2022, and was replaced by Allison Wong, former executive director of The Contemporary Museum. But the board placed Wong on administrative leave a few months later and named Ewald as interim director. She became executive director in October.

Around that time, the agency made an unusual announcement when it changed the name of the venerable Hawaii State Art Museum to “Capitol Modern,” in a rebranding effort that Ewald said would help the facility shed the common misperception that museums are stuffy or uninvitingly uptight.

But the rebrand, which cost $156,260 and stripped the word “Hawaii” from the museum’s name, proved controversial, with critics including former government Ben Cayetano publicly panning the move, according to Hawaii Public Radio.

The foundation has in the past been a source of pride to the state. Hawaii was the first state in the country to adopt a percent-for-art law, a concept that subsequently spread to many other parts of the United States, where it applies in some places to both publicly owned and privately owned buildings.

The money is used to finance many community arts-based endeavors and festivals.

About 10,000 children in the state participate in arts programs funded by the commission through the percent program, tens of thousands visit public art exhibits and thousands of people each year attend Kamehameha commemorations.