Tourism Commission pushes Council for more equitable funding for arts groups, districts

Using Hotel Occupancy Tax dollars or General Fund budget allocations, the Tourism Commission wants the city to fund cultural districts and local arts groups that have historically been left out of consideration for ongoing city support.

At its most recent meeting, the commission approved a resolution to maintain a category for arts funding aimed at addressing historic inequities in the amount of money or other support they receive. It suggests money from the new category be allocated based on scoring for tourism impact, artistic history and merit, support for professional art jobs, and diversity of artists and audience served.

The resolution, which was conceived by commissioners John Riedie and Michael Cannatti, specifically mentions the need to fund the Red River Cultural District annually at a level comparable to other cultural districts. It also identifies Austin Shakespeare, Austin Dance Festival and Zilker Theatre Productions as arts nonprofits that could potentially qualify for ongoing city support.

The resolution originally echoed the support from the Music Commission and Downtown Commission for the city to provide annual funding the the RRCD, which helps to coordinate and market the cluster of music venues on Red River Street. If funded, it would likely receive an amount between $150,000 and $300,000, to keep in line with what’s currently provided to two other long-established cultural districts.

That section of the resolution was removed prior to the approval because of the specific language in portions of the other commissions’ resolutions about where additional money for new cultural district funding should come from.

Commissioner Greg Chanon said he wants the city to address the inequities in funding for various cultural groups and districts, but said citing specific funding sources was possibly beyond the scope of the commission.

“If you’re talking about allocating additional money out of the Hotel Occupancy Tax to cultural districts, that affects other allocations, and that’s a much bigger question that would need bigger focus,” he said. “I just want to be clear that we’re not talking about allocating any money out of the Hotel Occupancy Tax other than what (the city) would normally … divide that up.”

Riedie, who is also CEO of Austin Creative Alliance, said the recommendation follows the commission’s stated support for cultural attractions, parks and events that attract local and regional tourists. With the city moving to an equity-based model for awarding its cultural arts contracts in recent years, some groups that were longtime recipients of those contracts have seen their funding significantly reduced or eliminated altogether.

“I’m interested in employment for artists, and we found from the public comments we’d been receiving prior to this that both (artists and nonprofits) were impacted negatively by changes in the arts funding,” he said. “The other two cultural districts in the city did not have to go through a competitive process. They just got funded through the General Fund, but the Red River district was told it must compete with Austin Shakespeare and all the others for high taxes. I think what the Downtown Commission is doing … was to say, hey, all cultural districts should be treated equally.”

Commissioners briefly discussed delaying the resolution to allow more time to research and possibly reword the language, but the expectation of Council making a funding decision pertinent to the matter in early May made it necessary to pass at this month’s meeting.

“It’s our duty to advise Council on things that need to be changed and where errors have been made and where funding and missteps have happened,” Commissioner Bishop Chappell said. “I think that we have a duty to push this forward to Council as is so that this gets addressed. As we try to limit down what we want to do or increase the pie, there are ways to get things done and I don’t want to hold ourselves back because we don’t have the exact messaging that we’re delivering.”

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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