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The National Endowment for the Arts won a small victory on Capitol Hill when a Senate-House conference committee voted Wednesday to reduce the agency’s fiscal 1995 budget by only 2 percent, not the 5 percent cut approved by the Senate last July. The Senate targeted for cuts three specific programs-theater, visual arts and presenting/commissioning-but the conferees left it to the NEA to recommend areas for cutbacks.

If passed by Congress, the NEA’s budget will be about $167.78 million, its lowest since $167.73 million in fiscal 1988.

NEA Chairman Jane Alexander said: “The arts endowment has heard from Congress and the American people, who recognize the value of the arts in their lives.”