ARTS FEATURE
FOLLOW THE MONEY
The arts funding debate heats up as budget vote nears
Pg. 10 MAY 19 - JUN 1, 2021 - QCNERVE.COM
BY RYAN PITKIN
There’s no shortage of things to get engaged with when it comes to current Charlotte-area politics. There’s the overwhelming mission to put together a 20-year future comprehensive plan for the city, there’s fighting between the county commissioners and local school board that’s getting uglier all the time, there’s the reimagining of our police force, gun violence in communities, and any number of other issues on the table. But during a May 10 public hearing on the proposed city budget for Fiscal Year 2022, one in which residents could speak on the aforementioned issues or myriad others, nearly every one of the 20 speakers who addressed city council did so to address one issue: arts funding. That’s both a promising sign for the arts sector and a troubling one, as most of the speakers were there to speak against the city’s newly proposed plan to dismantle and revamp the way it’s funded the arts for decades. On April 13, Charlotte City Manager Marcus Jones laid out the framework of a new approach to arts funding for the city, moving away from the model that funneled all such spending through the Arts & Science Council (ASC). In a release that day, Jones announced that his staff’s plans will go beyond recommendations from the city’s Arts and Culture Ad Hoc Committee (ACAHC), which originally called for increasing arts funding from an annual $3.2 million to $4 million. Jones’ plan calls for an increase to $6 million annually, which would ideally be matched by $6 million in private fundraising, totaling $36 million in arts funding over three years. The funds would be placed with Foundation for the Carolinas, while also establishing an Arts & Culture Commissioner who would report to the city manager and receive guidance from a board of advisors appointed by public and private sector stakeholders. The plan would begin with the implementation of the new fiscal year budget, which will go into effect on July 1.
ASC would not be left out of the conversation completely, as they would be considered a grantee in the future. Jones recommended $800,000 in funding to ASC during the upcoming “transitional year,” though the plan does not clarify what funding for the organization would look like in the two years following that. Despite the proposed increases in financial support for the arts, hundreds of local creatives have come together in a coalition called ART Future to stand against the proposed plan and push the city to increase funding for ASC, bring more independent
president Krista Terrell told Queen City Nerve she felt the entire process had been expedited without explanation. Terrell said ASC had been in conversations with the city about finding ways to increase funding for the sector, conversations like those surrounded a proposed sales tax increase that lost a referendum vote at the county level in 2019, but insisted that the new plan was sprung on the organization without warning. “We have the experience and expertise to do this work,” Terrell said. “It’s been really interesting how this has accelerated very quickly, and really
ARTS & SCIENCE COUNCIL PRESIDENT KRISTA TERRELL PHOTO COURTESY OF ASC
artists and grassroots arts organizations to the table to play a role in allocating funding, and ensure that funding will be allocated in an equitable manner that doesn’t prioritize large institutions or tourism impacts, among other demands. Dupp&Swatt co-founder and ART Future supporter davita galloway spoke at the May 10 meeting about her desire to see a wider range of creatives participating in formulating the city plan. “Have you ever been in a meeting and all of the attendees are discussing what’s best for a targeted audience and/or specific group to which they don’t belong, nor do they have proximity?” galloway asked council members. “Yeah, that’s what this feels like.” Her concerns echoed those of many of the speakers that night, as well as those of ASC leadership. Speaking after the meeting, ASC
not a clear understanding of why. For me, there has never been communication by the city or city council members to ASC saying we have an issue with the way you’re doing your business or how you do X,Y, Z.”
The city takes a new path
It was in February that the city began publicly discussing the potential for creating its own commission to handle arts funding, at the recommendation of the newly formed ad hoc arts committee. “This is really a long-overdue assessment by the city of how we achieve our goals, as opposed to just awarding the same amount of money each year to a partner organization,” said city council and committee member Ed Driggs at a Feb. 24 ACAHC meeting.
It was at this meeting that the committee unanimously approved recommending a new plan to create an arts advisory board and hire an arts and culture commissioner. The decision came as ASC has struggled through a decline in workplace giving during recent years. It also came on the heels of an inaugural Cultural Equity Report from ASC, released in February 2020. The report admitted to missteps in equitable funding by the organization in the past while laying out the framework for how it planned to prioritize equity in the future. Part of the plan included the launch of an equity supplement to further support organizations whose primary intentions, practices and mission are by, for and about African, Latinx, Asian, Arab and Native American artists, cultures and communities (ALAANA). In the first round of FY 2021 investments from ASC, announced in July 2020, the equity supplement resulted in a 60% increase in funding for organizations with an annual budget of $300,000 or less, a 30% increase in funding for organizations with an annual budget of $300,000 to $1 million; a 33% decrease in funding for organizations with an annual budget of $1 million or more; and a 33% increase in funding for ALAANA organizations over what would have been awarded prior to the equity supplement. Comparing ASC funding for the Mint Museum and the Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture between Fiscal Years 2020 and 2021, before and after the equity supplement was applied, gives a glimpse at how drastic these changes can be. In 2020, the Mint Museum received $926,352 in operating support and the Gantt received $179,880. In Fiscal Year 2021, when ASC implemented its equity supplement formula, the Mint went down to $509,494, and the Gantt went up to $201,813.51. Terrell, who was named president of ASC on April 27 but has been with the organization for more than 20 years, says some council members have used ASC’s Cultural Equity Report against them, publicly implying that the organization is doing too little, too late to fix a problem that they created. Terrell says ASC began its work around prioritizing equitable funding seven years ago, only making it public with the release of its Cultural Equity Statement in 2019 and the report in February 2020. “I’m really excited about increased funding for the sector, because we have been advocating for that for years and years, so I’m excited about increased funding, my concerns are about the
