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Aleskie, head of the Arts & Ideas Festival

When Gov. Jodi Rell slashed the already approved state budget by $34 million a fortnight ago, she probably felt she was making a point about prudence and frugality.

In at least one exchange, though, she comes off as a petty welcher.

Among her many controversial cuts, Rell blithely took $43,000 from New Haven's International Festival of Arts & Ideas. This money, according to festival director Mary Lou Aleskie, has already been spent, as it should have been.

Aleskie says the festival, which is carefully scheduled to provide maximum economic stimulus during the summer doldrums, "falls in between the time the budget is approved and the time the fiscal year starts. So our fiscal year '09 is the state's fiscal year '10. When Rell enacted this decision, our auditor said 'That's an additional loss for '09, that we can do nothing about.'

"We have to recoup expenses for a fiscal year that's already done. We were expecting this money back in our coffers. It affects our cash flow for 2010. Those reimbursements are needed, so we can forward-finance the next festival.

"It actually affected two fiscal years for us."

After steady growth in funding and influence during the administration of John Rowland, (who, despite his numerous failings, was nationally lauded as an inspirational "arts governor"), Arts & Ideas has been a steady target of budget-cutters in recent years. Its $3 million budget is about the same as it was a decade ago.

"While to some, $43,000 may seem insignificant, or a luxury, to us it's devastating," Aleskie says. "It can be a staff position, an artist on the Green, a community program."

The festival was already projecting a deficit for 2009 based on a reduction in state funding and the expected decline in private donations due to the unstable economy.

At the same time, Aleskie says, "We had the largest return on the dollar and the largest economic impact we've had in years. We also had our largest attendance in years, despite the economy and the rain. The festival itself — this is not counting all the tourists, just the festival — booked and paid for 789 hotel nights in June. This is not charity — we're driving the economy during that period."

A recent New York Times article ruefully noted another way the state is letting the festival down: In the state budget approved by the legislature back in September, the Culture & Tourism commission's budget for statewide promotions has been reduced from $4.3 million to one buck.

Let's say that again, with feeling.

A budget of $1.

Neighboring states, which are experiencing similar hard times but wisely not gutting their tourism promotions, are gleeful at the prospect of advertising their attractions in a state that could blow its entire budget by buying a newspaper.

Even other countries are spending more on Arts & Ideas than the state of Connecticut appears to.

The cultural ministries of Ireland, Scotland, Hungary and elsewhere happily pay to host visits from A&I administrators in the hopes their artists will be showcased at what has become, as Aleskie puts it, "a major destination for artists looking for visibility in North America."

That visibility will be cloudier in the festival's own home base.

"We've done more and more in terms of impact, but our budget hasn't grown," Aleskie says.

"That's an important question to keep putting to the candidates," the ones who'll have to rethink these slashed and burned opportunities once Rell leaves office in 2010.