State of Florida Arts Funding: Q&A

Introduction

After the devastating veto in the 2024-25 state budget, Florida restored its arts funding in the 2025-26 budget with over $21 million approved for the Florida Division of Arts & Culture (DAC) grants program, and $1.8 million in funding to 15 Palm Beach County organizations. This year, the Governor approved the state’s 2026-27 budget with $20 million allocated for the DAC program, which will fund 121 organizations across the state, including just over $1 million for 9 organizations in Palm Beach County*.

The state’s grant program has not recovered since the Governor’s $32 million veto in the 2024-25 budget year. Organizations now compete for roughly half the pre-veto funding, with 70% fewer grants being awarded across Florida. Palm Beach County’s state funding has dropped 77% over four years. Many organizations have not received funding for three years in a row.

The Cultural Council will continue to advocate for public support for the arts. It’s an important part of our mission as the designated Local Arts Agency (LAA) for Palm Beach County. One key strategy – in February 2026, the Cultural Council was successful in getting a Palm Beach County representative on the Florida Council on Arts & Culture for the first time in 20 years. This is the 15-member advisory council appointed by the Governor, Senate President or Speaker of the House to advise the Secretary of State regarding cultural grant funding and matters pertaining to arts and culture in Florida. Palm Beach philanthropist and arts champion Frances Fisher was appointed to the Florida Council by Senate President Ben Albritton. The Cultural Council will support Fisher in her role and provide her with timely information and resources so that we can maximize opportunities for artists and cultural organizations in Palm Beach County.

We have sorted through the data and have compiled some information to help educate the sector about the legislative process and who received funding this year, as well as to help arts advocates with their messaging.

*The $20 million allocated in the 2026-27 budget includes a $7.5 million provision meant to fund additional Culture & Museum grants around the state. The Secretary’s office has not released a recommended list for these funds; however we anticipate some of this budget will be allocated to Palm Beach County’s remaining 38 qualified organizations in this grant category.

Q. What is the Florida Division of Arts & Culture and how does the grant program work?

The Florida Division of Arts & Culture (DAC) is part of the Department of State. The government agency runs four arts and cultural grant programs subject to appropriation every year by the Florida Legislature:

1. General Program Support (budget line item called Cultural & Museum Grants) – general operating support funding for organizations to help fulfill their missions; this grant also supports Local Arts Agencies (like the Cultural Council)
2. Specific Cultural Projects (budget line item called Culture Builds Florida Grants) – designed to fund a specific cultural project, exhibition, or series; these are typically smaller grants and can be awarded to an organization, an artist, or a municipality
3. Cultural Facilities (line item called Cultural Facilities Grants) – designed to support the renovation, construction, or acquisition of facilities for arts organizations
4. Cultural Endowments (line item called Cultural Endowment Grants) – designed to create endowments by matching funds in order to provide operating resources

Every year, cultural organizations around the state submit grant applications in these four categories. These requests are vetted, scored, and ranked through a rigorous process, including a live panel review by statewide arts professionals. All grants must be matched dollar-for-dollar by the organization, and twice-annual reporting is required. This process happens every year, and funding must be allocated during the legislative session.

Q. What happened to the grant funding during the 2026 legislative session?

DAC grant applications typically open in the early summer for the following budget year. Since the veto year, the Secretary’s office has been working to make changes to the grant process and funding criteria to meet new State laws and the Governor’s priorities. One of the changes made during this cycle was to re-open the application cycle after the deadline, and require applicants to confirm that all its activities from the date of submission of the application through the final date of the grant agreement, including non-grant funded activities, shall be of such a nature that the applicant would not be in violation of Chapter 847, Florida Statutes, if a minor, as defined in s. 847.001, F.S., were to be present. Applicants were asked to complete an attestation and re-submit the application. Some organizations (especially performing arts venues) did not reapply this year, as they did not feel the statute is clear enough, and could not attest that all future programming would be appropriate for all ages.

Going into the legislative session, 780 applications across the state qualified for $73.3 million in grant funding through the four DAC grant programs. This included 64 organizations from Palm Beach County with a combined request of $6.9 million.

Mid-way through the session (and after appropriation committees had met and allocated initial funding recommendations), the Secretary of State released an abridged list of 301 organizations recommended for a total of $31.2 million in grant funding. Most of the cuts were made from the General Program Support (Culture & Museum Grants), which is the largest grant pool. The list cut 600 qualified applications down to 121 (a nearly 80% reduction). There was no rubric shared for how the list was created. Thirteen counties and 5 disciplines were excluded, including all LAAs across the state. Palm Beach County’s 47 qualified applications in that category were cut down to 9 recommendations.

The Cultural Council worked with advocacy groups across the state to request assistance from the Legislature for more funding and a more equitable approach to allocating grants. We also took a leadership role in uniting the 19 LAAs across the State in a campaign to be added back to the list of recommended grants. At the end of the session, leadership in the Senate and House responded by generously adding a $7.5 million provision that would fund additional Culture & Museum grants around the state. The Legislature also recommended full funding of the Culture Builds Florida grant program (128 grants across the state funded at $3 million). No funding was recommended for the Cultural Facilities or Cultural Endowment programs.

The Governor approved the 2026-27 budget in late June. He kept the recommended funding and provision for the Culture & Museum grants, but he vetoed the Culture Builds Florida grants as part of $1.6 billion in line-item vetoes. The Secretary has not yet released a list of organizations eligible for the provision.

It’s important to note that the 2026-2027 budget also includes $38 million for 27 arts and cultural member projects/special appropriations funded through DAC. These are special one-time allocations sponsored by a legislator for a project in their district. These are not vetted by DAC or any outside panel. There were no projects funded in Palm Beach County. Some cultural organizations may have received special appropriations in the final budget through other departments (i.e. Housing and Community Development, Veterans Affairs, Education, etc.).

The following graphs show the number of qualified 2026-27 applicants in each grant category; the recommendations released by the Secretary of State; and the final funding allocations approved by the Governor (broken down statewide and for Palm Beach County).

Q. What organizations will receive state funding this year?

The following organizations will receive full funding of their Cultural & Museum grant in the 2026-2027 budget cycle:

• Busch Wildlife Sanctuary, Inc.
• Center for Creative Education, Inc.
• Cox Science Center and Aquarium
• District Board of Trustees of Palm Beach State College
• Lynn Conservatory of Music
• The Masterworks Chorus of the Palm Beaches, Inc.
• Norton Museum of Art, Inc.
• Palm Beach Dramaworks, Inc.
• Seven Hillz Productions Foundation

The following organizations submitted Cultural & Museum grant applications, qualified for funding based on scoring criteria, but were not included on the Secretary of State’s recommended list. Most of these organizations have not received funding for three years in a row. 

• Adolph & Rose Levis Jewish Community Center, Inc.
• Aequalis, Inc. (The Core Ensemble)
• Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens
• The Armory Art Center, Inc.
• Ballet Palm Beach, Inc.
• Benzaiten Center for Creative Arts, Inc.
• Boca Ballet Theatre Company
• Boca Raton Historical Society, Inc.
• Boca Raton Museum of Art, Inc.
• Boca Raton Philharmonic Symphonia, Inc.
• Boynton Cultural Centre, Inc.
• Centre for the Arts at Mizner Park
• City of Lake Worth Beach
• Creative City Collaborative of Delray Beach, Inc.
• Cultural Council for Palm Beach County, Inc.
• Digital Vibez, Inc.
• Florida Atlantic University
• Friends of Mounts Botanical Garden, Inc.
• The Henry Morrison Flagler Museum
• Historical Society of Palm Beach County
• Lighthouse ArtCenter, Inc.
• Loggerhead Marinelife Center, Inc.
• Lowe Art Breakthroughs Corp.
• Loxahatchee River Historical Society, Inc.
• Maltz Jupiter Theatre, Inc.
• The Morikami, Inc.
• Palm Beach Opera, Inc.
• Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival, Inc.
• The Palm Beach Symphony Society, Inc.
• Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts
• Resource Depot, Inc.
• School of the Arts Foundation, Inc.
• Spady Cultural Heritage Museum, Inc.
• Sunshine District Association of Chapters of SPEBSQA, Inc.
• Village of Royal Palm Beach
• Village of Wellington
• Young Singers of the Palm Beaches, Inc.
• The Zoological Society of the Palm Beaches, Inc.

The Council is not publishing the list of organizations, municipalities, special events, or artists who qualified for funding through the Cultural Facilities, Culture Builds Florida, or Endowment grant programs since those programs were either not funded by the legislature or vetoed by the Governor. That information can be obtained by contacting DAC.

Q. What has happened to Florida’s arts funding over the last 4 years?

The Cultural Council has crunched the State data to better understand arts funding trends and gain insights to share with the sector. What we learned is that DAC grant funding levels have not recovered from the pre-veto year (2023-24) when $43.2 million in arts and culture funding was allocated to 740 organizations across the state, including $4.8 million in funding to 56 organizations in Palm Beach County.

Funding for DAC grant programs have dropped by 54% ($43,252,101 to $20,000,000); grant recipients fell from 740 to 224 (70% fewer); and Palm Beach County funding decreased 77% ($4,828,339 to $1,093,190).

The data shows a structural shift in Florida arts funding – not just a temporary reduction. The veto year created a discontinuity, and funding has not recovered. Organizations now compete for roughly 54% less than pre-veto funding, with 70% fewer grants being awarded. Palm Beach County’s share of state funding has dropped from 11.2% to 5.5%, suggesting the county may be disproportionately affected by the new allocation approach.

The following graphs illustrate a shrinking pipeline for state arts funding over the last four annual budget cycles:

Q. How does the Council advocate on behalf of the sector?

The Cultural Council connects locally, and travels to Tallahassee every year to meet with Palm Beach County delegates, as well as the House/Senate members on the key appropriation committees that allocate funding to the grant programs. We were successful this year in getting a Palm Beach County representative on the Florida Council on Arts & Culture for the first time in 20 years.  Over the past few years, the Cultural Council has hosted pop-up dance performances by Palm Beach County artists in the Capitol rotunda to raise awareness about the importance of the funding; welcomed a quartet from Palm Beach Symphony to play in the Capitol lobby on the opening day of session; and coordinated with Palm Beach County Delegation members to host receptions for the arts in their offices. We continue to look for ways to educate and connect with legislators.

As the designated LAA for Palm Beach County, the Cultural Council applies for state funding through the annual DAC grant program. These public dollars are critical to arts agencies to fund services like advocacy, professional development for the sector, and services specific to promoting a healthy sector. We remain steadfast in our mission and advocacy work to support the health and growth of our cultural sector.