The Oct. 1 editorial “To build Mass., build the arts’’ made a strong case for public investment in arts and culture. As the editorial noted, the arts are a powerful economic engine, helping to drive the economy at the local and state level. Arts institutions employ tens of thousands of residents and generate billions in economic activity, dwarfing the impact of professional sports.

In my service as the director of two community art centers in Massachusetts over the past decade, I saw the positive impacts of the arts every day: a child who felt her parents’ financial stress at home, but relaxed when we put a paintbrush in her hand; a group of teenagers interpreting a piece of sculpture in our gallery; a widower who kept his spirits up by attending a ceramics class.

While the Legislature’s recent override of Governor Baker’s line-item reduction of the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s budget assured level funding for the agency, our history over the past 30 years has been one of disinvestment. In 1988, Massachusetts state funding for the arts totaled $26.7 million. Adjusted for inflation, that $26.7 million would be more than $56 million in today’s dollars, four times the amount approved last week by the Legislature.

As director of government relations and legal counsel for the state arts council in the 1980s, I spent many hours at the State House making the case for investing in the arts. As we used to say at the council, “Culture is our common wealth.’’ Let’s increase our investment in the arts and keep our Commonwealth vibrant and strong.

Kim Comart

Newton