State’s arts council spends $10 million of taxpayer money

This year’s lengthy state budget negotiations drew increasing attention to the state’s taxpayer giveaways — including more than $10 million in arts grants awarded to organizations through the Michigan Arts & Culture Council.

The Council offered approximately 800 grants totaling $10.4 million to arts initiatives throughout the state. The grants are doled out annually.

Most of the grants went to cities, townships, schools, and villages.

Several grant recipients awarded by the arts council have received grants from the state budget in the past two years or more.

The Detroit Symphony Hall was awarded $19,300 in 2025 by the council. The orchestra, owned by the same entity, was also awarded $750,000 in the 2025 state budget.

The Detroit Zoological Society received an $819,200 grant from the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity in June, and it got a $39,450 grant from the arts council.

Flint Children’s Museum received $500,000 from state taxpayers in 2023. It will add another round of taxpayer funding, $106,862, state officials announced in June. And the council has announced a $27,500 grant to the museum.

Other organizations have also received more than two rounds of funding from Michigan taxpayers.

CapCon reported Aug. 26 that voters approved a 10-year 0.44 mill to fund the zoo and the Grand Rapids Public Museum.

In 2023, the tax generated $12.1 million, which was split between the zoo and museum.

The museum also got a $1 million grant from the 2024 budget, CapCon noted.

The Midland Center for the Arts, which took in $5 million in the 2022 state budget, also got in on this year's giveaway with a $34,450 grant from the arts council.

“MACC’s main focus is to guide the distribution of grants to entities who provide arts and cultural programs and services throughout Michigan and envisions a state where communities celebrate creative expression and every person has access to, or participates in, arts and cultural experiences,” according to michiganbusiness.org.

The arts council has yet to respond to a request for comment.

The continued spending on the arts comes as Michigan ranks sixth-worst in the nation for job creation, a public policy expert noted.

“What constitutes art is in the eye of the beholder, and forcing many taxpayers to pay for what few may think is worthy of support is unfair,” said Michael LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative at the Mackinac Center of Public Policy.

LaFaive added that this kind of funding gives the advantage to the best grant writers and government bureaucrats rather than to the best artists.