On May 2, 2025, arts groups received an email from the National Endowment for the Arts. It referenced arts funding cuts California in its rationale.
Sixteen months later, Congress has kept the agency at its previous funding level, the White House has proposed shutting it down a second time, and funding for the year starting October 1, 2026 is still open.
The state and local picture is different, and in some places worse. Here is how the pieces fit together.
How the money flows
The NEA is small. Its budget has been flat at $207 million since fiscal year 2023, according to the agency’s appropriations table.
By law, 40 percent of NEA grant money goes to state arts agencies and regional partners. For California that means the California Arts Council, which received about $1.3 million to $1.6 million a year in federal funds between 2024-25 and 2026-27, based on the enacted state budget. The other 60 percent goes out as direct grants to organizations, including the ones cut in May 2025.
The state agency’s main income is California’s General Fund. It regrants that money to local groups and to county partners like Arts Orange County. Counties and cities run their own programs on top: LA County’s Organizational Grant Program, the City of LA’s Cultural Grants Program, and the city grants the Arts Council for Long Beach administers with hotel-tax money from Measure B.
A mid-sized theater might hold all four at once. When one layer cuts, the others rarely make it up. Patrick Brien of Arts Orange County told Culture OC in May 2025 that private donors could not realistically replace federal money across many organizations at once, reflecting arts funding cuts California.
Who lost NEA grants here
Based on published reporting, the May 2025 terminations reached across the region.
In Los Angeles, Cornerstone Theater Company had a $40,000 offer withdrawn (NPR). The Museum of Contemporary Art lost $65,000 for its “Monuments” exhibition with The Brick, Pasadena’s Armory Center for the Arts lost $30,000, and JOAN lost $20,000 (Artnet News). East West Players lost $20,000 for a world premiere, according to L.A. Dance Chronicle, which also reported cancellations at Invertigo Dance Theatre and BODYTRAFFIC. Spectrum News named Deaf West Theatre, Boston Court Pasadena and Angel City Chorale among those affected, and American Theatre reported Hero Theatre lost two grants.
In Orange County, Culture OC reported that South Coast Repertory lost $20,000 tied to “The Staircase,” Chance Theater lost $15,000 for its new works program, Anaheim Ballet lost $10,000 for an outreach program, and Pacific Chorale lost $15,000 for a commission. The cities of Anaheim and Laguna Beach, Muzeo and Relampago del Cielo were also on the list.
In San Diego, CalMatters reported San Diego Ballet lost $10,000 and Pacific Arts Movement lost $25,000.
No terminated grant to a Long Beach organization turned up in the coverage reviewed for this piece. That does not mean there were none.
Congress said no, twice so far
The White House budget request released in May 2025 asked for $29 million for the NEA, described in the agency’s own document as money to “begin the orderly closure of the agency.”
Congress did not go along. The House passed the fiscal 2026 Interior appropriations bill 397 to 28 and the Senate followed 82 to 15, according to Glasstire, and the law signed in January 2026 kept the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities at $207 million each. The agency has kept making grants under its new priorities, including more than $16 million announced January 8, 2026 for projects tied to the country’s 250th anniversary.
Then on April 3, 2026, the administration sent Congress a fiscal 2027 request that again proposed $29 million and a wind-down, per the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies. The House Appropriations Committee answered with $135 million, a $72 million cut but not elimination. As of early September 2026 the Senate had not released its bill, and the House had approved a stopgap to keep the government open through December 11.
Status as of mid-September 2026: enacted at $207 million for the year ending September 30. Pending for the year after.
Sacramento cut, then restored
California’s state arts budget has its own timeline. In 2024, facing a deficit, Governor Newsom proposed a $10 million cut to the California Arts Council’s $26 million grant budget. The final deal trimmed that to $5 million a year for 2024-25 and 2025-26, according to California Arts Advocates, and funded a new Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund at $12.5 million.
The enacted 2026-27 state budget shows the effect. Council spending was $41.7 million in 2024-25, dipped to $36.7 million in 2025-26, and rose to $54.8 million in 2026-27. Local assistance, the part that becomes grants, went from $28.3 million to $20.5 million to $27.0 million over the same three years.
The June 2026 budget agreement put $12 million into the payroll fund, well under the $40 million advocates requested. Then a September budget bill, AB 113, added more: California Arts Advocates reported it raises council local assistance to $38.55 million and gives $4 million to the Cultural Districts program. The bill went to the governor on September 8, 2026 and had not been signed as of the latest record checked.
Demand outruns supply either way. The council said its 2026 cycle awarded nearly $24.6 million across about 1,200 grants, and California Arts Advocates said the agency received close to $90 million in eligible requests.
Counties and cities
LA County’s Department of Arts and Culture absorbed a $1.7 million cut in 2025-26 as part of countywide reductions. The Organizational Grant Program dropped from $5.67 million to $5.06 million, community impact grants fell from $750,000 to $500,000, and the arts internship program was set to lose about half its slots, from 228 to roughly 118. In July 2026 the county announced $5.6 million in grants to 353 nonprofits at the reduced levels.
The City of Los Angeles, facing a roughly $200 million deficit, proposed cuts to the Department of Cultural Affairs for 2026-27. An April 2026 letter from the Cultural Affairs Commission described $800,000 in as-needed staffing cuts, the end of $300,000 in performing arts programming at Lankershim Arts Center, and a cut to the Central Avenue Jazz Festival from $77,000 to $27,000.
San Diego went furthest. CalMatters reported in April 2026 that the city eliminated its $11.8 million arts and culture grant program, which served nearly 200 organizations. The county stepped in the same month with a new $2.75 million arts fund.
Long Beach has cut staff but not, so far, its grant structure. The fiscal 2026 budget adopted September 9, 2025 created a Cultural Affairs Division inside the Library, Arts and Culture Department. The proposed fiscal 2027 budget, released July 30, 2026 to close a $58.2 million structural gap, eliminates about 413 net positions, 14 of them in Library, Arts and Culture, and scales back Homeland Cultural Center activities. City arts grants still draw on Measure B, the 1 percent hotel-tax increase voters approved March 3, 2020 for arts organizations and the convention center.
What to watch
Three things are unsettled this fall: the NEA’s 2027 budget after the federal stopgap, the governor’s signature on AB 113, and Long Beach’s final budget vote before October 1.
The NEA’s deadline for state partnership applications is September 29, 2026, with awards expected in April 2027. That application is for money Congress has not yet appropriated.
Sources
- NPR: “NEA hit with grant cuts after Trump administration’s call for elimination”
- American Theatre: “NEA Abruptly Pulls Arts Grants on a Massive Scale”
- Spectrum News 1: “SoCal theaters reeling after sudden loss of NEA funding”
- Artnet News: “All the Arts Organizations Impacted by NEA Funding Cuts”
- L.A. Dance Chronicle: “Determined to Continue: Los Angeles Companies and Artists Respond to the Devastating Cuts to the NEA”
- Culture OC: “Rescinded NEA Grants Cause Pain for O.C. Arts Groups Large and Small”
- CalMatters: “This local government in California is investing in the arts, as cities and federal agencies cut arts funds”
- CalMatters: “This California city is eliminating arts funding to fill a deep budget gap; it’s not alone”
- National Endowment for the Arts: “Appropriations Request for Fiscal Year 2026” (PDF)
- National Endowment for the Arts: “Appropriations History”
- Congressional Research Service via EveryCRSReport: “National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities: FY2026 Appropriations”
- Glasstire: “Congress Passes Bill Fully Funding NEA & NEH Through 2026”
- NASAA: “NEA Funded for FY2026”
- NASAA: “Statement on Proposed Elimination of the NEA, April 2026”
- NASAA: “Legislative Alert: President’s FY2027 Budget Proposes Minimal NEA Funding”
- NASAA: “Federal Updates”
- NASAA: “Statement on Cancellation of NEA Grants”
- National Endowment for the Arts: “National Endowment for the Arts Awards New Round of Grants Celebrating America’s Birthday”
- National Endowment for the Arts: “Partnership Agreements”
- California Department of Finance, ebudget.ca.gov: “2026-27 Enacted Budget, General Government (8260 California Arts Council)”
- California Arts Advocates: “Advocacy victory! Final California budget restores 75% of arts funding cuts”
- California Arts Advocates: “January 2026 Legislative & Budget Updates”
- California for the Arts: “BREAKING NEWS: California’s 2026-27 State Budget Update”
- California Arts Advocates: “We Did It Together! What California’s Final Budget Means for Arts and Culture in California”
- CalMatters Digital Democracy: “AB 113: Budget Act of 2026”
- California Arts Council: “Council Votes Unanimously to Approve Allocations for 2026 Grant Program Awards”
- LA County Department of Arts and Culture: “2025-26 Grant Program Budget Impacts”
- LA County Department of Arts and Culture: “Department of Arts and Culture Awards $5.6M to Arts, Cultural, and Social Service Organizations”
- City of Long Beach: “Long Beach City Council Adopts Fiscal Year 2026 Budget”
- City of Long Beach: “City of Long Beach Presents Proposed Fiscal Year 2027 Budget”
- NBC Los Angeles: “Proposed Long Beach budget would eliminate 413 city positions”
- Arts Council for Long Beach: “Grants”
- City of Long Beach: “Arts Support”
