CARSON CITY — The Nevada Arts Council recently distributed $250,500 in federal stimulus funding to 39 arts organizations throughout the state, helping to preserve jobs and arts programs in fiscal year 2010. One-time grants of up to $10,000 were awarded to organizations with budgets ranging from less than $25,000 to more than $1 million from six counties and 13 communities.

Susan Boskoff, Nevada Arts Council’s executive director, said, “We are extremely pleased that Congress and the Obama administration considered the arts as an essential national industry when creating the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009. The work of Nevada’s arts sector is critical to the health of the state’s communities, schools and economy. We had a goal to distribute our stimulus funding to our partners in the arts workforce by the start of the new fiscal year, and indeed, we met our goal.”

To deliver its stimulus funding in a timely, transparent and targeted manner, the arts council designed a new grants category and review process in the midst of this year’s challenging legislative session. The Sustaining Nevada’s Arts Programs grant program provides one-time funding to preserve critical jobs in the arts and artist contracts, which then helps sustain arts and cultural programming throughout the state.

A panel of sitting and past arts council board members reviewed 61 eligible applications during a day-long public hearing. The panel’s funding recommendation, produced after examining four different allocation scenarios, was then considered for the full board of the arts council. After a rigorous discussion, the board approved full funding to eight organizations with scores more than 90 and the funding of applicants with scores between 70 and 90 a proportionate amount of the remaining dollars.

Four other Nevada arts organizations received stimulus funding through from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Western States Arts Federation as part of their ARRA direct grants programs. Recipients of National Endowment direct grants are the Reno Chamber Orchestra ($25,000), Clark County Division of Cultural Affairs ($50,000) and Western Folklife Center ($50,000). Sierra Arts Foundation received a grant of $18,000 from the Western States Arts Federation.

Stimulus funding from the Nevada Arts Council was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, which received $50 million through the Recovery Act to distribute nationally. Organizations could receive stimulus funding grants through one source only — from a federal, regional or state funding entity.