Arts Funding, Jersey Style (It Helps To Have Connections)

Three New Jersey arts groups split $1.2 million from special allocations determined by members of the state legislature. The grants did not go through the traditional arts funding process. “The politicians conferred with members of the Treasury’s Division of Administration to decide the grants. The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the state agency that already distributed $22.7 million to arts organizations this year, was not consulted.”