Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC), the largest arts and culture funder in the region, has had quite an impact on elevating and celebrating Cuyahoga County’s nonprofit arts and culture organizations in the past 18 years.

The organization, established in 2006 after voters approved a 10-year cigarette tax levy in 2005, has made more than 3,000 grants that total more than $236 million to more than 485 nonprofit arts and cultural organizations in Cuyahoga County in that time.

CAC officials would like to continue funding the nonprofit arts community. So, on Monday, April 29, the CAC board of trustees approved a resolution to Cuyahoga County Council—requesting a tax levy be placed on the November 2024 ballot to replace and expand CAC’s dedicated tax resource.

CAC officials hope to put a 35 mill tax levy renewal on the November ballot, which equates to 3.5 cents per cigarette, to increase funding for arts and cultural organizations in Cuyahoga County. The current levy is 15 mills, or 1.5 cents per cigarette.

In 2022, Cuyahoga Arts & Culture supported thousands of arts and cultural events in hundreds of locations across Cuyahoga CountyWhen the levy was renewed in 2015, it received 75% support, showing support for arts funding in the community. But because of declining cigarette sales, revenue is down significantly. CAC is proposing the increase to offset the decrease in revenue. The levy is estimated to generate around $160 million over the next 10 years if approved in November.

“We’re down 50% from where we started [in 2006] and this will be the first time we've asked for an increase in 17 years,” says Jake Sinatra, director of grantmaking strategy and communications. “It will not get us back to where we started, at about $20 million, but it'll definitely help us reverse the trend momentarily.”

The decision to move forward with the levy renewal comes after months of planning and research, Sinatra says. “The research and the polling we’ve done so far suggests that we have a pretty good shot at this, “So that's our hope.”

CAC executive direct Jill M. Paulsen says that despite the support they have seen in the research, the steadily declining income from the cigarette tax levy has been a concern. She says that as a public  agency mandated to fund nonprofits, CAC cannot campaign independently for the levy and has been working with longtime consultant Jeff Rusnak, Assembly for the Arts, and Assembly for Action, an independent 501(c)(4) for the creative sector, to launch a campaign.

Paulsen adds that they have been preparing for this time.

CAC grant recipient BorderLight Fringe Festival“It's been a couple years, from a policy perspective, to get to [Tuesday’s resolution],” she says. “There will be months where we’ll have to work on a local level with County Council. Jeff [Rusnak] said it better when he said, ‘We started planning for this the day after the last campaign in 2015,’ because we always knew something was going to have to change—be it expanding what we tax, expanding the current tax, or looking at other mechanisms. It really has been on our minds and on our plate for a while.

While Paulsen acknowledges that the proposed women’s soccer stadium and the potential of a new Browns stadium could raise concerns about competition from other tax levies, she clarified that CAC funding is separate and focused on supporting nonprofit arts organizations.

She says the levy renewal is crucial for maintaining current levels of funding for grants and ensuring that arts organizations can continue to serve the community and provide arts education and enrichment.

CAC grant recipient The Sculpture CenterWith income in the first quarter of 2024 already substantially down, Sinatra says it’s more evident than ever that CAC needs to ask for an increase in the tax levy renewal. “We have to go back a little bit sooner than we expected,” he says. “The expiration [of funds] would have been at the end of January 2027. We have been planning from a budgeting standpoint on this and this is a necessity, at this point, as far as continuing to support groups and not continuing to see big reductions to the grants.”

Moving forward, CAC plans to engage with the community through roundtable discussions and surveys to gather feedback and input on grant funding priorities. The organization aims to ensure the voices of artists and nonprofits are heard in shaping the future of arts funding in Cuyahoga County.

“If we don't get this on [the ballot] November and if we don't win, grants will go down quite significantly,” says Paulsen. “I'm pretty confident that we would need to decrease grant making by 35% in 2026, and that is a best case scenario.”

Pending approval by Cuyahoga County Council, Assembly for Action will launch a campaign effort to raise awareness and support for the tax levy.