CLEVELAND, Ohio — The campaign to increase Cuyahoga County’s cigarette tax for the arts is on hold at a critical moment because of rising community discontent over the public agency charged with distributing more than $11 million a year in revenues.
Fred Bidwell, a philanthropist and highly visible arts leader, announced in an op-ed article published Sunday by cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer that the nonprofit Assembly for Action, the political action committee devoted to raising $1.5 million for a new levy campaign, was pausing its efforts.
Bidwell emphasized he was speaking for himself, and not as chair of the five-member board of Assembly for Action. He said he was speaking out over broad frustration in the arts sector with Cuyahoga Arts and Culture (CAC), the public agency that distributes the cigarette tax money.
CAC and the 30-cents-a-pack cigarette excise that supports it were created after county voters approved the tax in 2006 for 10 years starting in 2007. Voters renewed the tax in 2015 for a second 10-year period ending January 1, 2027.
Tax revenues have dwindled by roughly 50% since 2007, as the population of smokers has declined. The Ohio legislature earlier this year granted Cuyahoga County authority to increase the tax.
A consultant to Assembly for Action has recommended that an issue be placed on the November 2024 ballot. Cuyahoga County Council would have to approve a CAC ballot issue in time for paperwork to be filed with the Board of Elections in August, consultant Jeff Rusnak said Monday. With fundraising on pause, there’s no money to proceed with plans for a campaign.
Bidwell said Monday, in an interview with cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer, that he is convinced after speaking with local foundations, individuals and leaders of the city’s top arts organizations that they would not donate toward a levy campaign until changes were made at CAC.
“They are resistant to supporting this without hearing about how there will be change,” he said.
In the interview and in his op-ed, Bidwell said that CAC’s board and staff need to be more transparent about their operations and decision-making, and more open to accepting and acting on criticism and advice.
Bidwell said the agency has allowed its mission to drift and expand from allocating tax revenues by formula based on the size and budget of organizations to creating and administering new grant programs to spread money more widely, and thinly, as if it were a private foundation.
He said the agency is spending money that it shouldn’t be spending on marketing and programming, and that the adjudication process it uses to award grants is “very complex and opaque.”
Furthermore, he said, while CAC’s revenues have declined, the agency’s staff has not been reduced in size. In his op-ed piece, Bidwell called the lack of adjustments in overhead at CAC “unconscionable” at a time when arts organizations across the county are still hurting from cutbacks necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“A return by CAC to its original mission would reduce its overhead costs substantially and return hundreds of thousands of public dollars to its intended purpose every year,” Bidwell said in his op-ed piece.
Bidwell said in the Monday interview he was not calling for the ouster of Jill Paulsen, the executive director of CAC since 2016. The authority to hire and evaluate the executive director rests with CAC’s board.
But he said the flow of authority at CAC has been reversed with the board “rubber stamping” actions initiated by Paulsen and the CAC staff instead of actively managing CAC’s activities.
Chinenye Nkemere, recently appointed chair of the 23-member board of trustees for Assembly for the Arts, said that artists and organizations have been saying that CAC “is not taking their ideas and suggestions carefully.” She said “there’s no shame in taking a moment to adjust strategy.”
Agency response
Paulsen responded Monday to a request from cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer for an interview with a written statement saying, “It’s critical that we look past disagreements and squabbling over our drastically declining revenue to unite for continued funding for the arts in our community.”
“For example,” she continued, “there is a misconception that CAC is holding money back, or sitting on substantial reserves, but that is simply not true. The money in our accounts is or will be encumbered – that means it is committed to grants we will make for the next two years. More than 90% of our revenue is used for grants each year.”
“Without coming together, CAC will cease to exist in a few short years. The world is changing, and the needs of our arts community are great. The bottom line is we can’t succeed without working together. I’m ready to work with our Board, arts leaders, and artists to move forward and work through differences of opinion so that we can keep this vital resource secure.”
Breaking silence
Conflict over CAC’s policies and management has been visible in recent meetings. Charna Sherman, a CAC board member, has consistently questioned what she has called lack of transparency over funding for individual artists.
In March, Paulsen and Mendez said in an email to CAC board members and stakeholders that the website Cool Cleveland was spreading “lies’’ about the CAC’s spending on such grants. The email was accompanied by a spreadsheet that attempted to set the record straight, but which contained faulty math.
Paulsen and CAC issued a corrected spreadsheet and declined further comment. Mendez said she regretted that “we didn’t check our work” on the math. She also said, “we want to have transparent conversations with journalists because it is your job to hold us accountable.”
Despite such flareups, arts organizations, as a whole, have largely been silent over the dissatisfaction with CAC. Bidwell said Monday that his op-ed was an attempt to break the silence.
“You can’t make change unless you’re able to tell the truth,” he said. “In some cases, Cleveland has been held back because people are unwilling to say difficult things and we have to get over that.”
Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reached out to arts leaders on Monday for comment, including executive directors of Cleveland’s “Big Four” cultural organizations — the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Playhouse Square.
Other sources or organizations contacted for comment included Nancy Mendez, chair of the board of Cuyahoga Arts and Culture and vice chair of the George Gund Foundation, and the Cleveland Foundation.
Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne has the power to appoint members to the five-member board of Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. Ronayne recently appointed Daniel Blakemore, the philanthropy director of the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park. He also reappointed Michele Scott Taylor, the chief program officer at College Now Greater Cleveland.
The seats held by Charna Sherman, a lawyer; and Karolyn Eisenhart, an assistant auctioneer at Rachel Davis Fine Arts, will open up in 2024.
“Like Mr. Bidwell, the Ronayne Administration wants to ensure a vibrant and effective cultural support system in our community,” the county said in a written statement.
“Our appointments to the Cuyahoga Arts and Culture (CAC) Board, Michele Scott Taylor and Dan Blakemore, have strongly advocated for the arts and culture community and align with the County Executive’s vision for a robust cultural scene. We hope to see more applicants for the CAC Board in 2024.”
“The arts and culture community plays a critical role in our economy and quality of life. We need to work together to secure the future of arts and artists, and we will act as conveners to ensure that happens.”
“The administration remains committed to collaborating with stakeholders to ensure Cuyahoga Arts and Culture paves a successful path in Cuyahoga County.”
“Watershed moment”
Jennifer Coleman, the program director for Creative Culture and the Arts at the George Gund Foundation, said Monday that she supported Bidwell’s statements about CAC.
“CAC is at a watershed moment,” Coleman said. “We have to repair the eroded trust; it cannot be ignored. It has to be dealt with.”
Coleman said she’d like to see a complete review of CAC’s operations before any new levy.
“In the Cleveland art scene, there are a lot more organizations and a larger diversity,” Coleman said. “It’s in a different place than it was in 2007. We are past due in taking a very strong environmental review of our public arts funding structure.”
The Gund Foundation helped organize and fund the creation of Assembly for Action and its sister organization, Assembly for the Arts, a 501 (c)3 nonprofit, as a regional arts council representing nonprofit and for-profit arts organizations and businesses.
The mission of Assembly for the Arts includes expanding financial resources for the entire arts sector, for profit and nonprofit, and advising CAC on its operations.
Assembly for the Arts has made steps toward that goal since it was established in 2021. Earlier this year, CAC commissioned Assembly for the Arts to survey artists about how CAC could improve grantmaking to individual artists, a particular point of tension and controversy. Assembly is scheduled to present its findings at a CAC board meeting in December.
“There is concern, rightful concern, in many quarters’’ about the “transparency and effectiveness of CAC,” said Jeremy Johnson, executive director of Assembly for the Arts and Assembly for Action.
Tony Sias, president and CEO of Karamu House, America’s oldest African American theater, said, “it’s important to build support around CAC so we can get this campaign moving forward. This is hard work, but this is still very doable for our community.’’
Jeannette Sorrell, artistic director of Apollo’s Fire, Cleveland’s baroque music orchestra, said annual funding through CAC has been vitally important to the ensemble’s growth and international success.
She said it was “very concerning” to hear that the levy campaign has been paused, but she said: “I hope this can be used as a wakeup call to the whole arts community. We should all get more involved and work together to solve these issues and make sure that we can all meet the public with strong confidence when we’re asking them to support this levy.”