The share of cultural expenditure in the overall budget has been falling continuously for three years - while the city's income has increased. The data collection in the cultural sector shows that the original share of 3.6 percent (2023) fell first to 3.19 percent (2024) and then to 2.99 percent (2025). With the submitted draft budget, the share of cultural expenditure falls again - and with it the political weighting of culture - to around 2.8% (2026).

What is evident on a large scale is also evident on a small scale. A number of examples demonstrate that the proposed funding or non-increase leads to serious problems.

Wiesbaden's cultural development plan was launched in 2020 with broad political and civic support in order to prepare Wiesbaden's cultural landscape for the future and think ahead about development prospects. As the update of the Cultural Development Plan 2025 shows, numerous projects have been realized or initiated. Only a fraction of the comprehensive initial budget of 1,000,000 euros, which was earmarked for these implementations in the 2022/23 double budget, is still available in the draft chamber budget for 2026 at 50,000 euros. The idea of the cultural development plan to set, stabilize and further develop guidelines in the cultural policy discourse between politics, administration and cultural institutions is therefore no longer possible.

Project funding from the Department of Culture is falling once again. This cut affects all non-institutionally funded actors and is above all an indicator for the facilitation and realization of new and innovative art and cultural projects, especially those of younger artists. In this budget, independent project funding is once again being reduced from the original 500,000 euros to the absurd level of 80,000 euros.

The needs that arise in the independent scene as a result of cost increases are determined before each new budget in the "applications for institutional funding" and assessed by the Cultural Office. In general, this is already associated with a significant reduction in the application amount. One measure resulting from the implementation of cultural development planning is the establishment of a jury process in order to obtain objective recommendations on the amount of institutional funding. In 2021, the city council passed a positive resolution on a municipal bill. The implementation of the resulting recommendations is therefore logically the minimum required to achieve equal treatment in public cultural funding.

However, since the adoption of this procedure, which was applied for the first time for the deliberations on the 2024 budget, these recommendations have not been followed - with the exception of last year, in which 80 percent of the recommendations were implemented by the budget resolution in the municipal council.

This proposal also included the recommendation to introduce a dynamic increase in subsidies based on a price index and a funding period after four years. The dynamization and extension of the funding period were not implemented.

At first glance, the update of this area of cultural expenditure based on 2025 presented in the new draft chamber budget for 2026 reads like a success. However, in view of the massive general price increases in operating costs (energy costs, rents, etc.), the increase in the minimum wage and the associated shifts in personnel costs, the general increases in personnel costs, which also affect independent providers, it is in fact a massive cut for the funding recipients. Since 2020, the Hessian consumer price index has risen by at least 22.2 percentage points (as of July 2025). It is not possible to predict how long cultural institutions will be able to keep up with this development.

This leads to another point that reveals an imbalance in the consideration of cultural expenditure: The unequal treatment of culture under public aegis compared to non-profit cultural organizations.

The Hessische Staatstheater Wiesbaden is discussed here as an example - because it is published in its own documents: In 2024 and 2025 alone, for example, a subsidy of €636,900 has been made to compensate for pay increases[1] for the municipal share of personnel cost increases in addition to the item shown in the budget for the Staatstheater. For 2026, an additional 735,290 euros are included in the "further requirements" of the draft chamber budget.

No one will deny that wage and salary increases make sense. The point here is to show the consequences of this "automatism": Without an increase in the culture budget, all other areas of the culture budget will be relatively tightened accordingly. This affects the public, but above all the independent, institutionally funded institutions.

A solution must be found if the non-profit cultural institutions are to survive. They will no longer be able to withstand the financial pressure if they simply continue to receive funding: Closing days, program reduction and quality reduction up to complete abandonment are the result.

[1] Due to the contractual obligation in the Hessian Theater Contract and the collective bargaining employment contracts of the state theater with employees, these additional requirements are usually financed additionally by the city and state. This is treated as an irreversible "automatism" with far-reaching consequences.

This situation will become even worse with each additional major cultural project with high investment and operating costs. It is therefore essential that a list of planned cultural projects and investments is drawn up, including an expected timetable, and that the anticipated associated costs are made visible today. Binding decisions also need to be made at an early stage so that significant amounts of planning funds are not spent on projects that are then no longer implemented or implemented in a completely different way.

The Cultural Advisory Board therefore recommends, as a minimum, the implementation of the funds outlined in the "further requirements"

• for institutional funding,
• for dynamization,
• for all project funds of the Department of Culture (here the demand goes beyond the further requirements) and
• for cultural development planning

to be decided.

This is among other things:

220,000 euros in project funding

30,000 euros for the Cultural Education funding program

20,000 euros for the performing arts funding program

694,100 euros Implementation of jury recommendations for institutional funding

135,000 euros Implementation of dynamization according to price index for institutional funding

100,000 euros Funds for cultural development planning

= 1,199,100 euros Increase in cultural expenditure

The more difficult the budgetary situation becomes, the more important it is that the existing automatisms do not lead to even greater inequalities and confusion that play the actors off against each other. If the trend of recent municipal budgets continues, the independent scene will be "eaten up". But we want everyone to be able to survive and thrive. Generally speaking, the more confusing the world becomes, the more important the role of culture becomes as a mediator and provider of space for social discussion, as a catalyst for change. If it is not granted this role due to a lack of funding, culture can no longer play a role in social transformations.

We are convinced that the concerns of the Cultural Advisory Board and its considerations realistically describe the actual situation. We hope that they will take the proposals and ideas into account accordingly in the budget consultations.