This study examined the local arts agencies in seven jurisdictions: Broward County, FL, King County, WA, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, NC, City/County of Denver, CO, Miami-Dade, FL, Salt Lake County, UT, and City and County of St. Louis, MO. Data is primarily from 2009.
This cohort was selected by virtue of their status as major urban counties. They represent a variety of approaches to arts funding and cultural program structure.
Funding Approaches
Most of the agencies depend upon a designated source of funding to support arts and cultural development in their County. King County depends heavily upon hotel taxes. Several have created cultural funding districts. Salt Lake and Denver utilize a portion of the sales tax. St. Louis assesses additional millage on the property tax. In Broward, an allocation of the Tourist Development Tax ($600,000) and a portion of the sales tax (on arts-related merchandise) are devoted to the arts, but not on a significant scale.
Cultural Agency Structure
The structures of the local arts agencies varied in these Counties. In most cases, the organization was a department or division of County government (Broward, Miami-Dade, Salt Lake). Two are nonprofit organizations administering City/County funds (Charlotte, St. Louis). Denver has an Arts Commission in City government, but cultural district funding is administered by an independent board. King County has established a quasi-public cultural development authority with some unique powers and a designated revenue source. This model is being recommended for Broward County (in combination with a second model, Innovation Philadelphia, focusing on the creative economy; see Recommendation 22, page 44).
Level of Local Arts Agency funding
The amount of local arts agency
funding varied dramatically, from a low of $4.5 million in Broward to a high of $76.9 million in Saint Louis, with an average of $27.7 million. Similarly, per capita expenditures ranged from a low of $2.57 in Broward to a high of $77.53 in St. Louis, with an average of $30.98. As a percentage of local County General Fund expenditures, the range was a low of 0.05% (Broward and Miami-Dade) to 11.2% in St. Louis, with an average of 3.27%. By each of these measures, Broward lags significantly behind the comparison agencies.
Other Areas of Interest
Only
one agency, King County’s 4Culture has amassed an endowment ($28,031,510). Most agencies have no systematic systems for evaluation outcomes of their programs, that is, long-term impacts. Rather, they tend to rely on outputs (i.e., number of grants administered, number of projects completed on-time and under budget). Staffing levels at the study agencies tend to be significantly higher than Broward.
Please refer to the Research Appendix for a complete data grid of this comparison study.
Measuring success in implementation of this plan is important. Equally as important is monitoring the progress of implementation in order to accommodate changed circumstances and new opportunities, and to make mid-course corrections. Evaluation and benchmarks are addressed in detail in several places in this plan. They are summarized here and cross-references are provided for additional information.