From the Ed
Will Jacksonville become a Jiffy Feet town who shutters it’s cultural organizations? Abel Harding from JaxPoliticsOnline discusses the current debate over cultural funding in the city.
As Jacksonville’s budget debate has heated up over the past few weeks, city spending on arts and culture has, predictably, come under heavy criticism. Taxpayer funding of the Cultural Council—the non-profit organization that oversees the city’s grant program—has long been a target of those who believe that support of arts and culture is not an essential role of government. Critics point to long-struggling organizations like the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra and question the wisdom of local government continuing to pick up the slack. The school of thought seems to support the mantra that if non-profit organizations are unable to survive in the free market, they should cease to exist.
In truth, Jacksonville’s arts and culture scene, while surprisingly vibrant, is not heavily funded by local government. Jacksonville actually allocates roughly $3 million of taxpayer dollars—less than 1/2 of 1% of the city’s budget—to fund arts & culture programs in the city. According to the Cultural Council, that $3 million equates to the city investing $3.50 per person in arts funding—less than the price of a Starbucks Latte. That minimal expenditure of taxpayer dollars is used to leverage matching funds from private organizations, a tactic that is essential to obtaining those private dollars. (Private charitable trusts and companies are unlikely to demonstrate a willingness to invest in arts & culture in a city that has no interest in investing any of its own taxpayer dollars.)
The Cultural Council uses that $3 million dollars in cultural services grants to support 26 organizations, including the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, the Florida Theatre, the Museum of Science and History and the Beaches Fine Art Series. Lest anyone assume the aforementioned organizations are merely high-priced venues for Jacksonville’s elite, the reality is that the Cummer served 2,400 Jacksonville kids with disabilities at Very Special Arts Day, the Florida Theatre subsidized the fees of more than 25 nonprofit events, MOSH has taken the lead in developing educational awareness of water resources and the Beaches Fine Art Series presented eight free concerts to more than 10,000 people last year. Those are just a sampling of the organizations that benefit from Jacksonville’s public service grants. In all, the organizations funded through the Cultural Service Grant program served 339,826 Duval County students last year.
Before Jacksonville considers slashing funding of arts and culture, we need to pause to consider where downtown would be without the arts. Despite decades of failed development attempts, the one thing that has continued to thrive in downtown Jacksonville is arts and culture. Whether it’s a Jacksonville Symphony Concert, a new exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art or an event at the storied Florida Theatre, the organizations that serve Jacksonville’s arts community have proven to be the lifeblood of downtown.
In all, the organizations that receive funding through the Cultural Services grants program, provided an economic impact of $69 million last year. Not all of the impact; however, can be measured in terms of dollars. Imagine a Fortune 500 company that would consider relocating to a city without a symphony? Or, a thriving ballet program? Or, a historical society? The business of the arts is truly the business of economic development. A flourishing arts community symbolizes a city committed to greatness.
A tough economic environment is no excuse to deliver a sucker punch to Jacksonville’s arts and culture community. Their funding should remain intact. They are a critical component of the Jacksonville I want to live in, the Jacksonville that will continue to attract economic investment and the Jacksonville I hope my child settles in someday.
This article first appeared on Abel’s blog JaxPoliticsOnline. Abel is a regular political contributor to this site.
