Volusia County’s program of doling out dollars for a variety of nonprofit cultural groups is safe and remains intact at least for another year.
Despite calls to eliminate annual grants for 30-plus private organizations devoted to creative work, music, drama and historic preservation, the County Council has saved the grant program from the chopping block.
“We have so many needs. So what are we going to do? Raise taxes?” Keith Chester, a critic of the program, asked the council during its deliberations Nov. 19.
The program of allocating funds to offset some of the operating expenses of the groups has come under scrutiny in recent years, amid demands from council members and others who caution the county must delete unnecessary spending and find savings to ease the tax burden. The cultural grants total $611,758 in the county’s 2024-25 budget. The cultural spending under consideration here comes from the county’s general fund, whose revenues include property taxes.
An advisory panel known as the Cultural Council reviews the applications for the grants and recommends funding amounts to the County Council, which has the final say.
“At the end of the day, what are your core responsibilities?” Chester added, decrying the cultural-arts funding. “These are handouts.”
The cultural-grant program has its supporters. Among them is Richard England, executive director of the Hub on Canal, an organization that has a museum and offers art classes at 132 Canal St. in New Smyrna Beach.
“There is increasing competition for the donated dollar,” he said, adding the county’s grants are vital to the nonprofit groups. “Taking those dollars away … it’s getting harder and harder to find them.”
Upon the recommendation of the Cultural Council, the County Council appropriated $58,092 for England’s Hub. The Hub had asked for $85,000 for the current fiscal year.
The County Council expressed mixed feelings about the program. Council Member Jake Johansson said he would like “to wean people off the tax dollar.”
“But do you plan for the taxpayers always to subsidize you?” County Vice Chair Troy Kent asked the supporters rhetorically. “Is there a plan to get off the public money?”
County Chair Jeff Brower spoke of “the struggle” between wanting to fund the groups and causes and “how we spend other people’s money.”
Brower suggested the county consider tapping the tourist-development tax as a means of aiding arts and cultural programs. The tourism tax is a surcharge imposed on hotel and motel bills and bills for short-term rentals. The tourist-development tax revenues now cover expenses for maintenance and upgrades of the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach. Such a shift would require an ordinance that would have to be approved by the County Council.
In the end, and after some members voiced misgivings, the council voted to leave the cultural-arts funding at the $611,758 total.
That figure, according to county officials, has remained level since 2012. That number, too, is significantly less than the combined total of $917,901 the agencies and groups had requested.
