By T. Weber, KWMU
St. Louis, Mo. – Arts advocates are considering suing to force better funding from Missouri.
The state budget for the fiscal year that started Tuesday includes no money for Missouri arts, so the Missouri Arts Council had to dip into a separate trust fund to keep local arts programs going.
But arts lobbyist Kyna Iman says raiding that fund will lower the amount of interest to be made.
"Without new money going into it, it just doesn't make sense to raid that fund," Iman said. "I don't think the governor never intended to fund arts programs, but when you're looking at a billion dollar deficit I guess that was just an easy account to go to."
Iman says the law that established the trust fund requires lawmakers to put money into it. She says because that didn't happen this year there's talk of a possible lawsuit.