This is a developing story.
A new round of widespread Trump administration cuts is hitting local arts and culture programs including library-by-mail services to remote communities statewide, Perseverance Theatre, the proposed Capital Civic Center, and the Juneau Jazz and Classics festival.
Email notifications of grant cancellations were sent nationwide Friday by the National Endowment for the Arts, hours after President Donald Trump proposed eliminating in the NEA and National Endowment for the Humanities in next year’s budget. He is also targeting other programs including the Institute of Museum and Library Services as well as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The NEA cancellation notices went out the same day Juneau Jazz and Classics held an opening reception for its Spring Festival. Sandy Fortier, the festival’s executive director, stated in an email Saturday it doesn’t appear the notice will have a short-term impact, but the outlook beyond that isn’t promising.
“They did move up our end date of the grant to May 31, so I need to look more closely, but I think we will be able to draw down funds by May 31 and since will have spent our match by then during the Festival. I hope I am right about that,” she wrote. “It’s sad news for next year. We were to have heard about a grant for next year by now and haven’t heard anything, so with the skinny budget that came out canceling all NEA funds, I don’t think things look good for the future.”
Similarly, Perseverance Theatre is facing uncertainty for its next season, although it is fortunate in a sense to have just completed its current one, Frank Delaney, the theater’s managing director, said Monday. He estimated about 5% of Perseverance’s total budget is from NEA grants, but those can be significant for individual projects — with half of the funding for the recently staged “The Thanksgiving Play” coming from an NEA grant.
“As we look to next season we can’t just not have that source of funding,” he said. “We need to find some way to replace it. What that is we just don’t know…There’s too many variables right now.”
Among the other local entities receiving a grant termination notice is the Juneau Symphony. However, Executive Director Charlotte Truitt said Saturday that NEA funds are a relatively small portion of the ensemble’s overall budget. The Juneau Alaska Music Matters program also receives NEA funds, with Executive Director Megan Johnson stating in a text message Sunday that “to date, we have not received news that it is being canceled, but it is unknown if the grant will be renewed for another cycle.”
A 2024 NEA fact sheet states more than $10 million in grants were provided in Alaska during the previous five years. Among the other Juneau recipients listed were numerous public schools, Bartlett Regional Hospital, Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall and Sealaska Plaza.
Juneau Library ends extension program to remote communities
A cut to a different program by the Trump administration resulted in Juneau Public Libraries announcing last week it is cancelling its Library Extension program that provides materials to remote communities statewide.
“We were actively sending things back and forth to 87 different communities in the state,” Catherine Melville, director of Juneau Public Libraries, said in an interview Monday. She said during the past fiscal year 596 individuals in 278 households received materials.
Juneau has been providing materials statewide for about the past decade under a program through the Alaska State Library, a modification of an earlier program where libraries in major cities provided materials within their regions, Melville said.
“The scope is from every geographical corner of the state, every region,” she said. “We work with parents, we work with teachers, we work with really anyone who has an information or a reading need. And of course this includes physical items that we send back and forth in the mail — books and media. But for those people who live somewhere where they have internet access — or sometimes have internet access — it also means that they can then have access to all of the neat electronic resources that we have.”
However, an executive order issued March 14 by Trump ordered the reduction of staff and functions of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, according to an April 29 letter sent by Melville to Alaska Library Extension patrons. Institute staff were accordingly put on leave March 31 and “since then we have received no confirmation that funds approved by Congress (Museum and Library Services Act) will be awarded to the Alaska State Library.”
“In the absence of clear communication that funding will be available to pay for staff, books, materials, supplies and postage, we must begin the process of shutting down the Alaska Library Extension,” she wrote.
People with materials are asked to return materials and mailer bags “as soon as possible.” No further requests for shipments will be fulfilled after May 30, and beginning July 1 extension staff may not be available and “access to electronic resources is no longer guaranteed.”
“The Juneau Public Libraries have been providing library services to Alaskans living in areas without libraries for over 40 years, and we would prefer to continue to provide this service for the next 40 years and beyond,” Melville wrote.
Capital Civic Center, Sealaska Heritage Institute face humanities grant uncertainties
Among the Juneau projects potentially hit by the cancellation of National Endowment for the Humanities funding is the Capital Civic Center, which received $750,000 for the proposed facility, said Bob Banghart, executive director of the nonprofit Partnership group backing the project.
“We don’t know right now if the NEH will come forward with the full amount of $750,000 as they have promised,” Banghart said Friday.
That’s a small portion of the grand ambitions for a convention and arts complex costing up to $60 million, although Banghart said “the prestige of having an NEH grant solidifies the project on a national scale.” However, he said other more substantial grants mean the proposed project should remain on fairly stable footing.
“Last year when we went after private foundation funding we were able to secure money from the Block Family Foundation, the Murdoch (Charitable Trust) foundation and the Rasmuson Foundation,” he said. “Those particular successes play much more strongly into our long-term success with other granting agencies.”
Another Juneau entity affected by the NEH freeze is the Sealaska Heritage Institute, which lost two grants worth about $300,000 for ethnographic studies about how Southeast Alaska Natives have harvested and consumed traditional foods such as black seaweed, herring and herring eggs. SHI President Rosita Worl told the Anchorage Daily News last month the institute has not had to lay anyone off as a result of the NEH grant terminations and is pursuing alternate funding to keep conducting its research programs.
However, the overlapping impact other Trump administration cuts is having on cultural programs was demonstrated last week when a traditional foods distribution of herring roe and salmon to communities was put on hold by the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska due to the cancellation of a $513,000 Department of Agriculture grant.
Trump’s war on “waste” and “woke”
Trump continued his foray into arts and culture on Sunday with social media posts declaring he will impose a 100% tariff on movies made outside the U.S. and reopen Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary as a federal prison. Experts widely quoted in media coverage say both concepts don’t seem feasible due to the complex international ties of many Hollywood projects and the vast deterioration of the island prison that is now a tourist attraction.
Trump and his top officials, including Elon Musk as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, have justified widespread cuts occurring throughout the federal government as eliminating “fraud, waste and abuse.” However, The New York Times reported last month that Musk’s original pledge to cut $2 trillion in spending this year has been modified to claim his cuts are likely to save $150 million — without providing details of how.
Meanwhile, the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, estimates the firings, rehirings, lost productivity and paid leave of thousands of workers will cost more than $135 billion this fiscal year — not including the cost of dozens of lawsuits filed against DOGE actions. Furthermore, cutbacks at the Internal Revenue Service are expected to result in $8.5 billion less revenue in 2026 alone, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University.
Trump and his supporters have also proclaimed the cuts are an effort to eliminate programs that are “woke” or otherwise incompatible with the administration’s objectives. In response, a group of senior NEA officials announced their resignations Monday due to the recent grant cancellations, The New York Times reported.
Some entities in Juneau and nationally have tried to preserve federal funds through attempts to appease the administration, including the University of Alaska as well as the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council announcing they would remove diversity, equity and inclusion materials from their websites and other publications.
Delaney said while Perseverance is evaluating its options if it doesn’t get lost federal funding restored, altering content to meet Trump’s demands isn’t in the plans.
“What it has not done is causing us to change any of the programming we were planning on producing,” he said. “We are not planning on changing any of the language on our website.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
