By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

AUBURN – Local arts agency L/A Arts needs to show why it needs $40,000 more in its budget, leaders from both Lewiston and Auburn agreed Tuesday.

Both Lewiston and Auburn city councils agreed to give L/A Arts the same amount of money it received last year – $26,000 from Lewiston and $21,000 from Auburn.

Both councils met Tuesday in Auburn Hall to go over the budgets for six jointly financed programs: the 911 communications center, the emergency management agency, the Lewiston Auburn Economic Growth Council, L-A Transit Committee, the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport and the arts group.

All told, the budgets amount to $1.245 million for Auburn and $1.25 million for Lewiston.

Andrew Harris, L/A Arts’ new executive director, asked the cities to increase funding to the arts group by $20,000 each. That money would let the agency concentrate on providing programs and shows, he said.

“For the last few years, L/A Arts seems to have been concentrating more on finding money than developing programs,” Harris said.

Lewiston City Councilor Normand Rousseau said the agency is important for the Twin Cities.

“But we have a lot of important social service agencies, and we would love to increase all of their budgets by $20,000,” Rousseau said. “But we are asking them to hold the line. I have a hard time asking them to hold the line while we increase your budget.”

Councilors agreed to consider increasing the agency’s budget later, after meeting with L/A Arts board members to discuss the future of the agency. Until then, the group would get no increase in its funding compared to last year.