'It is not equitable': Milwaukee County committee delays arts fund allocation amid budget cut concerns

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) — The battle over funding for the arts took center stage Tuesday at a Milwaukee County Board committee meeting.

At the heart of the debate: how funding for various groups should be distributed, especially with those funds shrinking this year.

Milwaukee County's Committee on Parks and Culture voted to delay distributing its arts fund money to 48 eligible organizations.

It comes as many groups want the county to reconsider who gets what.

The 2025 county budget had some tough decisions in it, including a $100,000 cut to the county's art fund.

"There's been discussions over the last five years about how small of a pot of funding this is, and trying to do the most good with that small pot of money as it's shrinking is really difficult," said James Tarantino, deputy director of Milwaukee County Parks, the entity that oversees the fund.

That means the Cultural, Artistic and Musical Programming Advisory Council - known as CAMPAC - is trying to help more organizations with less money.

"The state of public funding for the arts is abysmal," Tarantino said.

Pre-pandemic funds were distributed proportionally, but CAMPAC now allocates money evenly.

"The folks that were serving more Milwaukee County residents received more funding. Now, everyone that applies to it received the same amount," explained Chad Bauman, the Ellen & Joe Checota executive director at Milwaukee Repertory Theater.

In this year's funding proposal, just over $6,400 will be given to 48 arts fund applicants each.

Four years ago, the Milwaukee Rep received $54,000 from the county annually.

Now, their $6,413 share would represent an 88% reduction, and at a time of crisis.

"The Milwaukee Rep is in the middle of trying to recover from an $8 million loss from the floods that we just got hit," Bauman said.

He spoke against the proposal at Tuesday's committee meeting, raising alarm about arts funding as a whole.

"Milwaukee, Wisconsin is the worst in per capita support for the arts at a city, county and state level," he explained. "For every single dollar that somebody comes in and invests in a ticket, seven dollars are generated in tax revenue. To me, you would fund that."

While some supervisors said more funding won't be added to the pot this year, most agreed that the art fund distribution needs to be reconsidered.

"This allocation today, if we go through with it, is not equitable. It's just not fair," said committee chairman, Supervisor Sheldon Wasserman.

This discussion will go to the full county board later this month.

If they agree with the committee, CAMPAC will go back to the drawing board, and hopefully have a new allocation plan by December.