The Oregon Legislature is considering cutting state funding for arts and culture organizations at the same time their supporters are working to increase it. Currently at risk is $867,370 in previously approved funding for capital projects and theater operations.

The news comes as the Cultural Advocacy Coalition of Oregon (CACO) that represents such organizations at the State Capitol is strategizing about the best way to increase state support for such groups, including by conducting a current wide-ranging online public survey of options.

The potential cuts are part of a much larger package of possible reductions to close a projected $63 million funding gap in the state’s current fiscal year budget. The Executive Department presented the package to lawmakers before they met at the State Capitol for several days in mid-November. The final decision will be made during the legally required 35-day “short session” of the Oregon Legislature that convenes on Feb. 3, 2026.

By then the potential cuts could be much larger, the co-chairs of the Legislature’s budget-writing Ways and Means Committee are warning. In an opinion piece in the Nov. 23 issue of The Oregonian,  they said that federal budget cuts in the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” proposed by President Donald Trump and approved by the Republican-majority Congress will cost Oregon an estimated $15 billion in lost Medicaid and food assistance funding over the next six years – funding that will need to be replaced or lower-income Oregonians will suffer.

And that’s not all.

“The federal cuts hit Oregon another way as well,” said state Sen. Kate Lieber (D-Dist. 14), who represents Beaverton and Southwest Portland, and state Rep. Tawna Sanchez (D-Dist. 43), who represents North and Northeast Portland. “Because Oregon’s tax laws are tied to the federal tax code, the state is now expecting to collect $900 million less to fund public services than previously projected. We are facing a shortfall despite actions we took in the 2025 legislative session to give Oregon a cushion amidst national economic weakening and high tariffs.”

A new state revenue forecast will be released shortly before the beginning of the 2026 session that will determine the spending gap that the Legislature needs to close.

Sponsor

Capital construction, theater operation grants on the chopping block

The current potential arts and culture budget cuts were included in a Nov. 3 letter to the Ways and Means co-chairs from Business Oregon, the state’s economic development agency that hosts the Oregon Arts Commission and the Oregon Cultural Trust. The agency’s total potential cuts amount to nearly $20 million. Other state agencies submitted similar proposals to the Legislature, too.

The potential cuts proposed by Business Oregon include a reduction of 10.44% of the funding for 12 previously approved Cultural Resource Economic Fund (CREF) projects across Oregon. Since it was created in 2013, the CREF has spent more than $30 million to help support 36 capital construction projects across the state, typically with state lottery bonds.

The proposed cuts would be applied against grants ranging from $150,000 to help transform the 1881 Old City Hall in Jacksonville into a museum, to $2 million to help expand and renovate the High Desert Museum in Bend. Only a $375,000 grant to help renovate the historic Elsinore Theater in Salem is exempt, because the money has already been spent.

Also targeted is up to 10% of $4 million approved to help operate the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland and Portland Center Stage. Like the remaining CREF grants, the share that could be cut is frozen until the 35-day session is scheduled to end by March 9 of next year.

Although the proposed arts and culture cuts are a very small percentage of the potential total spending reductions, they come as many such organizations across the state have lost funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the Trump Administration. That is on top of a large majority of Republicans in Congress voting to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And it is happening as local governments are reducing spending on arts and culture because of their own budget problems, including Portland and Multnomah County.

The final potential cuts considered by the 2026 Oregon Legislature could ultimately be much larger.

“It’s clear there aren’t many easy reductions left. We don’t yet know how much we may need to reduce budgets, pause programs or shift resources for this current biennium, or to avoid draconian cuts in the future,” Lieber and Sanchez wrote in The Oregonian.

Sponsor

CACO is committed to lobbying against any arts and culture budget cuts during the 2026 session, even as it is preparing to request additional funding from the 2027 Oregon Legislature through a process called The Big Re/Think that is under way.

Supporters host online survey, upcoming virtual discussion

The Big Re/Think is a followup to the original Big Think brainstorming process in 2014 that resulted in a list of 75 proposals grouped under 10 subject areas for the Legislature to consider. Among other things, it led to the creation of the Arts and Culture Caucus at the Legislature that has increased state funding over the years, although not as much as supporters want.

Conducted by the associated nonprofit Cultural Advocacy Coalition Foundation (CACF), the new outreach effort has already held six in-person workshops across the state, generating feedback from artists, nonprofit leaders, donors and other supporters. The most recent one was held on Nov. 14 at the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, which was funded in part by a CREF grant.

The Big Re/Think, which you can read more about in previous ArtsWatch stories here and here, is conducting an online survey to gather additional feedback.

“The Big Re/Think project is about listening, learning, and building a collective vision for how arts and culture can thrive statewide not just in our major cities, but in every community, large and small,” reads a Nov. 12 email from CACF co-chairs Judy Margles, director emerita of the Oregon Jewish Museum in Portland, and Ginger Savage, executive director of the Crossroads Carnegie Art Center in Baker.

The survey asks many questions to help identify why arts and culture are important, how they compare to other critical needs that should be funded, and ways to increase funding that does not take money from other deserving programs, such as the creation of a dedicated statewide tax. It includes questions about grants to individual artists, funding small and large organizations, increasing the tax credit for the Oregon Cultural Trust, the importance of arts education in public schools, and much more.

The survey can be found here.

Sponsor

A final public virtual discussion is scheduled for Dec. 2, after which a steering committee will analyze the responses and issue a report summarizing them and recommending priorities. That will become the basis for CACO’s lobbying efforts at the 2027 session of the Oregon Legislature.

Anyone can register for the virtual discussion here.

The Cultural Advocacy Coalition of Oregon was created in 2001 as a nonpartisan 501(c)(4) organization that works with legislators, cultural organizations, and community leaders to secure public funding and shape policies that sustain Oregon’s cultural ecosystem. It regularly partners with the Oregon Arts & Culture Caucus, Cultural Advocacy Coalition Foundation, Oregon Cultural Trust, and Oregon Arts Commission. More information about its work and The Big Re/Think can be found at oregonculture.org.

Previous Oregon ArtsWatch stories on the funding challenges facing arts and culture organizations, The Big Re/Think, cultural grants and other arts funding news can be found at orartswatch.org/section/culture/funding.