SARATOGA SPRINGS - Saratoga Arts announced that it would receive $163,000 in grant support from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), the most it has ever been awarded in one year by the state agency. Saratoga Arts will re-grant $86,000 from the NYSCA award through competitive applications. Through these re-grant programs, Saratoga Arts will provide artists the resources they need to create new work, support a wide variety of art disciplines and help the region’s smaller nonprofits and arts presenters serve the cultural, artistic and educational needs of their community. “We’ve been seeing more interest in these grant programs over the past two years, so we asked NYSCA for increased funding for 2014,” said Joel Reed, Saratoga Arts’ Executive Director. “The state selection panel was impressed with our program and the arts it nurtures in our region and granted us the full amount we requested.” Since it began these grant programs in the early 1990s, Saratoga Arts has granted over $860,000 for regional arts programs and projects. Saratoga Arts will also receive $43,000 each year for three years of unrestricted administrative support for its year-round work advancing community-oriented arts, including its arts education program, exhibitions at The Arts Center and other locations in the region, professional development workshops for artists, and presentation of First Night Saratoga. This $43,000 grant is 43 percent higher than what Saratoga Arts received last year. Saratoga Arts presents over 60 exhibits a year, providing hundreds of artists with opportunities to show their work and tens of thousands of residents and visitors chances to experience it. Saratoga Arts’ Community Arts Education Program offers hundreds of courses throughout the year for artists of all ages and skill levels and school break programs in theater and the visual arts.