Tacoma arts tax is $6 million a year experiment in need of more scrutiny

This year the City of Tacoma will collect an estimated $6.2 million from a sales tax increase passed by voters in 2018. Will that revenue go toward: A) homelessness; B) city infrastructure; C) behavioral health care; or D) ukulele lessons?

If your answer was D, give yourself an A-plus on today’s civics quiz.

Ukulele lessons at a Tacoma elementary school are just one of many arts-and-culture offerings made possible by Proposition 1 on the November 2018 ballot, more commonly known as Tacoma Creates. It levies one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax in Tacoma for the next six years. That translates to a modest 1 cent for every $10 spent in the city.

Building a strong cultural identity that invigorates the local economy and is accessible to everyone, not just the elites, is the reason we endorsed the Tacoma Creates measure.

But we’ve had reservations since the beginning. Let’s be honest, an arts tax might seem frivolous given the amount of suffering happening daily among Tacoma’s homeless population. As TNT columnist Matt Driscoll recently pointed out, how a city spends its money says a lot about its core values.

Don’t get us wrong, we love a good urban mural as much as the next person. But when human beings are found sleeping under it, unsheltered from the cold, the aesthetic beauty quickly dissipates.

A recent TNT letter writer raised concerns about misplaced priorities; another complained that the one sure thing Tacoma Creates has created is another layer of municipal bureaucracy.

It appears Tacoma has work to do to reassure voters they made the right decision when they embraced this ballot measure with a 67-percent yes vote.

Tacoma Creates, which was broadly conceived as a mash-up of arts, culture, science and heritage objectives, makes folks nervous. There’s a perception that this giant pile of money could become a slush fund for pet projects.

While organizers did a good job selling the “why” up front, the “how” was left hanging too long. Fourteen months after the measure passed, the city still doesn’t have an advisory board, and official guidelines for the first heritage grants are under development.

Lisa Jaret, Tacoma Creates program director, told a member of our Editorial Board the guidelines are expected to be completed by the end of January.

Now is a critical time to firm up oversight and accountability measures, as the city fills seats on the 12-member Tacoma Creates Advisory Board.

Tacomans are generous, but they’re also practical — and when necessary, skeptical. They need to know what they’re paying for, and see that it’s working.

Lest we fall into the trap of buyers’ remorse, we should acknowledge the holistic thinking behind Tacoma Creates. If our community is ever going to make headway on complicated challenges like addiction, chronic homelessness and generational poverty, it’s important to comprehend the big picture.

Tacoma Creates does that.

An arts-and-culture tax won’t put a roof over anyone’s head, but there’s still reason to hope this experiment could be a poverty-fighting intervention.

Tacoma Public Schools determined that students who are highly involved in the arts and other cultural activities score higher on tests and are less likely to drop out. The school district threw its support behind passage of Tacoma Creates, as did a host of labor, social service and community leaders.

Eyebrows have been raised over the $100,000 that Tacoma Creates contributed to purchase ORCA cards for Tacoma high school students. If you think spending money on bus passes is tangential to art and culture, you aren’t alone.

But we understand the city’s reasoning that after-school and summer programs don’t mean much if kids can’t get to them.

With some trepidation, we remain in favor of this tax, because when a city values arts and culture, the narrative changes.

But again, it needs close scrutiny.

The city is seeking Advisory Board representatives from each of the five City Council districts, plus stakeholders in arts, culture, heritage, science, public education and expertise in community engagement or community development.

It also would be wise to recruit members with strong budgeting, performance management and other oversight skills. Painters and poets are good, but accountants and auditors are also necessary.

Jaret said there are no other municipal models to follow. “We’re inventing a lot of wheels here.”

Those wheels have potential to take us somewhere special, a dynamic place where the horizon is expanded for our whole community. But they must roll straight and true, efficiently and cost effectively, according to a clearly defined set of goals.

That would be music to our ears. Cue the ukuleles.

TO GET INVOLVED

The Tacoma City Council is seeking applicants for 11 positions on the Tacoma Creates Advisory Board.

For more information, go to the Tacoma Creates Facebook page or contact Lisa Jaret at (253) 591-5161 or LJaret@cityoftacoma.org.

Applications must be submitted to the City Clerk’s Office by Jan. 26. To apply, click here or contact Michelle Emery at (253) 591-5178 or servetacoma@cityoftacoma.org.