PROVIDENCE – A U.S. senator, a city mayor and the chairman of a state legislative finance panel joined forces this morning to detail for the Rhode Island arts community local and national impact of the $50 million in arts funding contained in the federal stimulus package.

The R.I. State Council on the Arts (RISCA) is slated to receive $291,500 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse told the gathering at The Steel Yard, a three-acre industrial arts learning facility and business incubator in the city’s Valley district.

Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline and House Finance Committee Chairman Steven M. Costantino also attended the news conference called by the Rhode Island Citizens for the Arts. They discussed the arts and arts funding at the city and state levels, respectively.

In addition to the money RISCA will receive, Whitehouse noted, local arts organizations also may compete for shares of the $30 million in ARRA funding set aside for individual grants.

If Rhode Island simply does as well as other states, it can expect to receive $415,000 from that pool, bringing total ARRA funding for the local arts sector to $706,500 he noted. But given the strong local arts community, Whitehouse said he expects the state to do “considerably better.”

“I wish it were more, but it’s a good toehold,” the senator said of the funding total.

Whitehouse – a member of the advisory board to the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) – stressed the need, in the Congress and elsewhere, to make a convincing case for the importance of the arts.

He spoke of how Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma recently proposed a measure to prohibit the use of stimulus funds to improve such places as museums, theaters and arts centers. “I was mad as a hornet,” Whitehouse said. He said he was so incensed he “jumped up” to speak on the Senate floor without consulting his staff first, but he was too late. Some 77 senators ended up supporting the amendment.

The senator told today’s gathering that the support shown for such an arts-cutting measure is a “warning shot, reminding us that we have more work to do to enhance the stature of the arts.” As it turned out, Coburn’s restrictive language was not included in the final stimulus package.

The City of Providence – now in the process of preparing a long-term plan to strengthen the local arts and culture sector – is working to develop apprentice programs for artists as well as a model program for a “WPA-style” mural project, Cicilline said, referring to the federal Works Projects Administration that employed millions of Americans in the 1930s.

With the state in “very dire fiscal straits,” Costantino urged arts organizations to form networks to work together. “Instead of providing more arts and programs,” he said, “maybe we need to look at what we have and do it better.”

Since July 1, RISCA has distributed $83,440 to programs and individuals throughout the state.

But the $291,500 it received from ARRA has a different purpose and will require a new application process. The arts council has scheduled an April 1 workshop to help nonprofits “preserve jobs” by applying for stimulus funding.

Also at the news conference today, Lisa Carnevale, the new executive director of Rhode Island Citizens for the Arts, released the group’s five-year strategy plan to boost the arts.

Among its recommendations: appoint arts and design professionals to legislative committees; establish recognition awards for arts supporters; work with school superintendents and other education officials to increase creative learning in schools; and increase state funding for the arts to $1.5 million by 2014.

“Like our coastline, the arts and creative community is one of Rhode Island’s most appealing resources,” Carnevale said. “This plan explains how we can use that community to strengthen our economy in the short-term and position Rhode Island for future growth.”

Rhode Island Citizens for the Arts, founded in 1999, is a nonprofit research and policy group working to advance funding and other benefits for Rhode Island artists and the local arts sector. For more information, visit www.RI4Arts.org.