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NYC Arts in Education Roundtable

It Starts With the Arts 2025 Campaign Breakdown

4–5 minutes

By law, city government officials needed to pass a balanced budget by June 30th for the upcoming fiscal year (July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2026). With support from our partners at CMW Strategies, we wanted to uplift some top-line arts education-related highlights and updates:

Update on Campaign Priorities

  • Baselined Funding for Arts Education: In the Executive Budget, the Mayor baselined $199 million for educational programs once funded by pandemic-era stimulus funds. This included a major pillar of our It Starts with the Arts campaign, $41 million in funding for arts education in schools! This funding, now made permanent, will go towards ensuring there are resources for school leaders, teachers, and students while ensuring diversification and increased access to arts education and programs across the school system. We continue to advocate for this funding to be put towards the hiring of arts teachers and supporting arts partnerships.
  • Support for Arts Instruction: This upcoming budget sustains funding for the city-wide “Support for Arts Instruction Initiative” and arts partnerships in City public schools. The $4M initiative will continue to support standards-based arts instruction programs with a focus on increasing access to the arts and supporting pathways for sequential arts learning. We anticipate awarded schools to be announced this fall.
  • Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA): Another major win for Roundtable members and cultural partners was the baselining of $45 million in funding for the Department of Cultural Affairs in the Executive Budget. The Adopted Budget went further and added $30 million in one time operating support for the city’s Cultural Institutions Group (CIG) and Cultural Development Fund (CDF) grants. The Roundtable included this full request of $75 million for arts and culture in our campaign, and this significant win will benefit many members that receive funding through CDF or are a part of the CIG.
  • Transparency in Arts Education: Improving arts education data transparency continues to be a goal of the It Starts with the Arts Campaign. This year, we were able to secure a joint hearing between the City Council’s Committee on Cultural Affairs and the Committee on Education specifically about arts education. The City Council again attached a term and condition (T&C) requiring reporting on arts education in schools to the DOE’s budget. We anticipate this report will be made available later this fall via the City Council’s FY26 budget page.
  • Dedicated Funding for Arts Education: In a step closer to meeting our campaign priority to boost the per student arts allocation to $100, the per student amount saw a net increase from FY 2025 per student of $86.67 to $89.76 (School Allocation Memorandum #2: Arts Supplemental Funding through Fair Student Funding). However, the current allocation remains a recommendation instead of a requirement. This memo is intended to help schools effectively utilize resources and plan quality arts programming to meet NYSED arts instructional requirements for the upcoming school year

City Council Initiatives

  • Cultural After School Adventures: The total CASA initiative was restored to $17.34 million. Each Council Member is given $340,000 to support seventeen $20,000 CASA afterschool programs in schools. While many providers have already been designated at adoption, the City Council will continue to designate remaining funds in the coming months. We highly encourage checking Schedule C for a list of organizations who have been designated funding so far (pg. 30-59).
  • SU-CASA: The SU-CASA Initiative was restored to $3.82 million. The City Council has not yet designated any funding or released guidelines for Fiscal 2026. We will circulate updates as they become available.This works out to $145k per City Council member.
  • Cultural Immigrant Initiative: $7.395M is allocated to the Cultural Immigrant Initiative, remaining the same from FY 2023. Similar to CASA, many providers have already been designated at adoption, and City Council will designate $870k post-adoption (see pg. 59-72 in Schedule C for more information).
  • Arts as a Catalyst for Change: Art a Catalyst for Change has been merged with the Crisis Management System Initiative to form a new $4.49M initiative called “Violence Prevention and Intervention for Youth and Young Adults”. Designations have not yet been made. We strongly encourage organizations who have received this funding in the past to reach out to their Council Member for more information. 

We thank our representatives in government, especially Speaker Adrienne Adams as well as CM Justin Brannan, Keith Powers, Rita Joseph, and Carlina Rivera, for their recognition of the importance of arts education in our schools and communities. The Roundtable looks forward to working with you and our partners in the City Council, Mayoral Administration, and NYC Public Schools to build on this foundation and push for arts education for all. 

What next?

Thank Your Representatives: It is so important that we thank our elected officials for investing in arts, culture, and arts education. Please join us in thanking your City Council representative and feel free to use the social media copy below. Not sure who your Council Member is? Enter your address at this website: https://council.nyc.gov/districts/

Thank you to @nyccouncil @nycmayor [tag your city representatives] for their support of arts education in the city’s budget! Investment in arts, culture, and arts ed is an investment in the future of our City and our students. #ItStartsWithTheArts

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