That is $4.3 million less than the $124 million that these organizations — known jointly as the Cultural Institutions Group — ended up with last year after $22 million in Council restorations.  If the $4.3 million reduction holds — the budget will not be adopted until June — the Brooklyn Academy of Music for example, could well see a decrease of $575,000 from the $3.8 million it received last year. “We’re saying it’s a great thing as long as we don’t lose money,” said Karen Brooks Hopkins, the academy’s president.  One might expect arts organizations like these to cry foul. But cultural groups do not want to jeopardize their chances of seeing the budget pie expand before it is approved. Nor do they want to appear selfish in the face of a larger good-will reform effort.  “There may be instances when we do experience less funds,” said Emily Rafferty, president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which received $28 million in city money last year, including $340,000 from the City Council. But over all, she added, the changes amount to “very good news.”  Officials at Jazz at Lincoln Center, which received $523,000 from the Council last year, refused to comment on the budget changes.  In the past organizations were guaranteed support from the city and also successfully lobbied the Council for additional money. “It really was a question of who had access,” said Kate D. Levin, the city’s cultural affairs commissioner. “Some of the strongest smaller organizations never got any money. How do you incorporate this money into a funding formula? Ultimately our priority was trying to fix a system.”  Under the new rules, starting in the 2009 fiscal year, which begins in July 2008, the 34 arts groups will also have to work harder for their money, receiving only 90 percent of their funds up front. The rest will be conditioned on their performance through an evaluation process called CulturalStat, a program modeled on the Police Department’s performance-monitoring system.  Arts groups will be reviewed in areas like audience development and financial planning and may receive a portion of the 10 percent balance if they do not qualify for the whole amount.  In a cautious statement issued on Monday the Cultural Institutions Group seemed to hedge its bets. “We are gratified that the city sees the value of sustained and consistent funding to our member institutions,” it said. “Because of the many contributions of the C.I.G. to New York, we hope that the city will find a means to increase the funding to our organizations.”  The Bloomberg administration and the City Council acknowledge that some organizations may end up with less aid but assert that the broader changes will be positive. “Our intention wasn’t to take people’s money down,” Ms. Quinn said. “It was a way to create a more level playing field.”  Groups not situated on city property may continue to seek money through a variety of unpredictable channels: from City Council members, each of whom has $80,000 in discretionary funds; borough delegations, which get about $100,000 to distribute each year; or the Council speaker, who has discretionary arts funds amounting to $10 million.  In addition a $3.8 million fund established in 2003 by the Department of Cultural Affairs dispensed money to cultural organizations after evaluating their proposals. Now that fund has been increased to $30 million to be allotted by the peer-review panels.  Some 170 groups also used to get a fixed amount of money every year as “line items” that were written into the budget by the Board of Estimate, which has been abolished, and have been frozen since 1989. Now those lines have been eliminated.  Large arts groups find themselves in a bind. While the need to lobby Council members was something of a burden, they reaped benefits. And while in principle they are all for parity, they also do not want to wind up poorer for it.  “When there’s a dance, a lot of institutions became really adept at dancing,” Ms. Hopkins said. “When you change the political process, there is always the fear of the unknown. It’s a little scary.”  A news analysis article in The Arts yesterday about the effect on arts groups of New York City’s new process for dispensing culture funds misstated the name of a theater organization whose producing director, Liz Jones, commented on the process. It is Page 73 Productions, not Playwrights 73.  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page E1 of the New York edition with the headline: Arts Groups Seek Plums In a New Budget Pie. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
While some arts groups are likely to benefit from a change in New York City’s process for dispensing culture funds, those that fared well under the old system may face significant losses.