Inside the Ohio Statehouse, the first domino fell in a long row that could lead to Summit County joining Cuyahoga County as the only two Ohio jurisdictions legally allowed to tax cigarettes to fund local arts and cultural programs. 

“A regional tool to support arts and culture could be invaluable to Summit County, but only if it aligns with local priorities and community values,” said Nicole Mullett, executive director of ArtsNow, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the arts and culture sector in Summit County. “That’s a conversation we would welcome and we’re really interested in following this through.”

On Tuesday afternoon, the Ohio House of Representatives voted to advance an amended version of House Bill 96 — the hotly debated state operating budget legislation. Deep in the bill, a house committee inserted a provision last week that could allow Summit County voters to weigh in on adding the new tax if the Ohio Senate and Gov. Mike DeWine agree. 

“You can’t really dispute that [the cigarette tax] has been revolutionary for the arts and culture landscape in Cuyahoga County,” said Sarah Sisser, executive director of CreativeOhio, a Columbus-based group that advocates for the creative industry in Ohio. The House vote on Tuesday is “an important first step to being able to open the door to the conversation” in Summit County.

The House vote to allow Summit County to consider a local cigarette tax for arts funding comes amid the so-called Department of Government Efficiency terminating federal funding that arts and cultural programs rely upon. The Elon Musk-backed arm of the federal government recently terminated all grants for state humanities councils last week, including Ohio Humanities, which called the move an “existential crisis for cultural organizations – and all of Ohio’s stories.” The National Endowment for the Arts is in DOGE’s crosshairs this week, Sissler said, which will further cripple subsidized arts programming in the state. 

“As the state advocacy body, we are interested in any opportunity to expand that pie of public investment in arts and culture, and local funding options are one leg of that stool,” Sissler said about House Bill 96. 

The tax in Cuyahoga County

More than two decades ago, the state legislature created a law that only counties with more than 1.2 million residents as of the 2000 census could put a cigarette tax for arts and culture programs on the ballot. Only Cuyahoga County met that threshold, and county voters approved the tax in 2006. 

Last year, before Cuyahoga County voters ultimately approved hiking the tax from 1.5 cents to 3.5 cents per cigarette amid dwindling revenues from decreasing smoking rates, Signal Cleveland explained:

Cuyahoga County residents voted for a tax on cigarettes for the sole purpose of funding arts programming and culture in 2006. Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC) was formed to collect and distribute that money through grants to nonprofit arts organizations in the county. The Cuyahoga County Council appoints board members and approves ballot measures, but CAC is not a county entity — it is an “independent political subdivision,” like a library system.

CAC has distributed around $246 million through about 4,000 grants.

The bill the House passed on Tuesday amends the criteria for counties to take the tax to voters. Instead of the population threshold from the 2000 census that only Cuyahoga County met, now only counties with the home rule charter form of governance are allowed to consider it. Cuyahoga County and Summit County are the only two Ohio counties that meet that criteria.

Other jurisdictions in Ohio and in other parts of the country have implemented taxes on other purchases to fund arts and cultural programs. Sisser pointed out Columbus’ taxes on hotels and event tickets and other jurisdictions nationwide that tax cannabis sales and legalized sports gambling, but, “to the best of my knowledge, a tax on cigarettes to support arts and culture is still completely unique in this country.”

Getting the tax on the ballot may take years

Even if the provision is kept by the Ohio Senate and the bill is signed by DeWine, it only gives Summit County officials the legal ability to place the tax on the ballot — it doesn’t require them to do so. Whether it gets placed on the ballot, the proposed per-cigarette tax rate and the funding distribution mechanism would still need to be determined.

There would be a “multi-year conversation around if and when a campaign would happen and how that might look in Summit County,” Mullett said. “We’re interested in the conversation — we have have many partners in the county across many sectors. … When I say it’s early, it’s like early early.”

The State Senate will soon begin work on its version of the budget — DeWine will need to sign the bill into law by July 1.