On November 5,Cuyahoga County voters overwhelmingly approved Issue 55, increasing the cigarette tax from a 30-cent per-pack tax, first passed in 2006, to 70 cents per pack. The tax increase would raise an estimated $160 million over 10 years for public arts funding. Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the governmental body that administers the arts funding, said in a press release issued by the group’s executive director, Jill Paulsen, following the victory, that CAC will continue to be a “reliable resource and provide core support for the nonprofits that make our community such a special place.”
Local arts advocates and leaders of major cultural institutions in the region welcomed the election results. There was no organized opposition to the ballot levy.
Last year, controversy over individual grants to artists caused a raucous atmosphere at several public meetings, forcing the agency to review the granting process and increase the number and amount of grants available to artists seeking financial support for a broad spectrum of needs.
Jeremy V. Johnson, President and CEO of Assembly for the Arts, was tasked with creating a way to include more artists in receiving funds. While CAC only grants directly to nonprofits, the agency’s board voted to increase the amount allocated to Assembly for the Arts to support individual artists. Johnson created an advisory board.
The CAC board voted in December 2023 to approve $400,000 to the Assembly to manage the Support for Artists program for 2024, adding another $100,000 after former board president Nancy Mendez acknowledged the CAC had not paid out grants to individual artists in three non-consecutive years totaling several hundred thousand dollars. The additional money gives Johnson $500,000 for individual artists and artist support programs. Most grants require an application and support project-based proposals.
Mendez admitted in a public meeting last December that the organization had not paid out grants to individual artists in 2018 and 2019, and again in 2021. She said the artist’s money went into the general operating support. Mendez, currently the President and CEO at Starting Point, was replaced by Karolyn Isenhart, Executive Director of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party.
County Executive Chris Ronayne nominated Leonard DiCosimo to serve on the five-member board of CAC for the term through March 31, 2027, and Gina Vernaci, retired President and Chief Executive Officer of Playhouse Square, to serve through March 31, 2025. Both appointments confirmed earlier this year were meant to stabilize an otherwise publicly embarrassing display of upper management.
A report issued last year by ISO Arts Consulting, commissioned by CAC and hired by the Assembly for the Arts, revealed an artist community expressing a wide range of emotions, including anger, exhaustion, frustration, hopelessness and sadness related to a deep perception of disrespect to artists by CAC. The report, funded in part by the Gund Foundation, found overriding interpretations of CAC programmatic and funding choices and damaged community relations through deception, lying and manipulation. Tensions broke out in the artist community following the release of the report.
Former board president and CAC board member Charna Sherman, an outspoken advocate for individual artist grants while serving on the organization, said in an email that the overwhelming support for Issue 55 “vindicates our community’s longstanding appreciation of and support for a vibrant arts ecosystem.”
“Now that there is time to breathe, CAC hopefully will be more responsive to community concerns and priorities and specifically honor that these precious dollars are distributed to the arts and not unnecessary overhead,” said Sherman.
While some insiders believe approval of the ballot issue vindicates the organization, not so, said artist and community activist Liz Maugans. Maugans was central to mounting a campaign to hold the CAC board accountable for withholding grants to individual artists. She is currently a visiting professor at Cleveland State University and co-organizing Quest for Fest in 2025, an artist-led collective aiming to engage the NEO community with art, access, experience and fun. She also curates exhibitions for YARDS Projects and Tinnerman Lofts.
“I’m exhausted by this broke-ass sin tax,” said Maugans. “They pretend to be there for the public, but they operate in a vacuum.”
“Supporting the three-legged stool is a metaphor used by the Assembly for the Arts and CAC, which includes nonprofits, creative businesses and individual artists. This tax increase helps only one leg of that stool: the nonprofits,” she added. “The argument CAC continuously makes is that the trickle-down support of cultural nonprofits financially benefits individual creatives. Nationally published data proves otherwise and shows a vast decrease of 25% in artists’ compensation.”
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Internationally recognized experimental filmmaker and artist Robert Banks, Jr., a long-time resident of the Tower Press Building in the Superior arts District, said he has issues with taxing a substance that kills people more often used by the economically impoverished community and the elderly. He voted no.
“There are other ways of getting money for the arts other than taxing the nicotine community,” said Banks.
“I only know a handful of people under the age of thirty that smoke. Senior citizens and members of marginalized communities will be forced into the additional tax burden. I’m not comfortable with that idea. Do the artists benefit from this? There is a lot of gray area there,” he said, adding, “I am glad it passed simply for the morale of the city, but it didn’t get my vote.”
Mike Gutierrez, artist and former owner of the 2020 West Schaaf Gallery + Studio, an inclusive and community-focused art studio and abstract gallery featuring local and regional emerging artists that closed during the pandemic, said in a text response that, when it came time to vote, he gave greater consideration to the impact the generated funds have on community-focused arts programming and supporting the newly developed distribution process with Assembly for the Arts.
“I know firsthand that the organizations and people running them have the community in mind; their intentions to inspire are genuine. With the Assembly now engaged in the process, I hope that the stream of arts funding finds its way into the hands of local artists who aren’t so connected in many ways,” he continued. “I’ll be watching how money is handled moving forward while advocating for and helping to identify new funding sources other than cigarette taxes to sustain local arts.”
Local businesses will have to adjust to the tax increases by selling cigarettes at a higher price. This is a problem for Nash, owner of the Professor Market in Tremont. The margin on the sale of cigarettes is often less than 8%, and, according to him, tobacco companies raise their prices four times a year. “I have no choice but to raise the prices,” said Nash. “I voted against the levy. I said no.”
Jonathan E. Petrea, independent political consultant and founder of Ascendant Communications and Ascendant Public Policy Group in Cleveland, said funding the arts is tricky. While tax levies are often necessary, he called Issue 55 a type of ballot emotional extortion. “Based on what I know, there has been deception and slush funds created with a huge lack of transparency in how the tax dollars get allocated. A quasi-governmental agency, without elected officials,” he said, referring to the CAC, “with a lack of accountability, deceiving stakeholders is not how our tax dollars are to be handled.”
Petrea finds it alarming that people would vote for the levy with a 70% margin of victory without understanding the issues. “We, individually as citizens, have to look into the mirror and reflect upon how and why we cast our votes, especially when tax dollars are being used. When you have an entity that can operate without accountability, honesty or good faith, they amass power that creates an entity with mission creep. Those intended to benefit from this tax do not end up as the main beneficiaries. The elite, those in charge, and their friends make money from the organization’s actual mission.”
CAC said it plans to invest millions of tax dollars in hundreds of organizations and support tens of thousands of programs that enhance education, enrich the quality of life, and support the local economy, according to its website.
