Arts supporters in Summit County tried a sales tax hike in 2000 and Cuyahoga County tried a property tax hike for the arts in 2004. Both efforts failed. This time County officials have received dispensation from the state to target cigarette buyers - those same people who helped build the three professional sports stadiums in Cleveland. The Community Partnership for Arts and Culture, or CPAC, was formed nine years ago by the George Gund and Cleveland Foundations. Its president, Tom Schorgl, says the sin tax could generate as much as $25 million a year. But he acknowledges that higher taxes and new smoking bans may suppress smoking.
Tom Schorgl: Yes, probably smoking will go down, but in the interim the revenues that come in that helped support the building of Browns Stadium will also help support the arts activities that we have throughout Cuyahoga County.
Is the idea to tax the poor to entertain the rich?
Tom Schorgl: I don't think so. If you look at the research, people with low income who smoke tend to reduce their smoking at much higher rates than people from higher income brackets who have the discretionary income so they don't change their smoking habits. So over a period of time, when the new tax is introduced, actually higher income families carry a larger burden of the tax.
With total taxes of $1.50 per pack, Ohio would have the 11th highest cigarette surcharge among the states. This tax would only apply in Cuyahoga County. No other nearby counties are considering following suit at this time. The tax is likely to divide smokers and non-smokers. Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones is all too aware of that and says his action to put the issue on the ballot may mean he ends up sleeping in the garage. He paraphrased Nathan Hale.
Peter Lawson Jones: I regret that I have but one wife to give to my county and its cultural and arts organizations. I say that because my wife is a smoker.
The CPAC chairman, John Ryan, told the commissioners that Cleveland has long enjoyed high-quality arts and cultural organizations because of funding from corporations like BP and BF Goodrich. But those corporations with deep pockets and others have moved to larger cities, and so has the Cleveland Ballet. Even the Cleveland Orchestra is forced to prospect in Florida for corporate and philanthropic dollars. Ryan says this tax support for culture will not only help the arts it may help attract new business.
John Ryan: When companies are looking to come into the Cleveland area, I know that it is something that is often spoken about. People enjoy the arts and people look at the Cleveland area because of that.
Ryan is also the president of the North Shore AFL/CIO and he said as many 10,000 jobs in the county are tied to the arts. Much of that coming from tourism dollars.
Supporters argue other big cities offer public funding. The president of Cleveland City Council Martin Sweeney is on board. And downtown councilman Joe Cimperman, has long said arts help the community and the community should help the arts.
Tom Schorgl, of CPAC, says area schools now rely on arts organizations for education help. He says the money raised from the cigarette tax would be distributed by the county commissioners through various types of grants and competitive bids.
Tom Schorgl: One is a project-based grant that so any community in Cuyahoga County, regardless of size, can come in for an arts and cultural project and potentially get finding for that. This is a matching grants fund; it's not cultural welfare system. You gotta have money from the private sector to match it. So it will also stimulate new money or even more money from the private sector.
The tobacco industry is expected to work hard to repeal the new state law that allows local governments to adopt the extra cigarette tax. Commissioner Jimmy Dimora says the November vote for publicly funding the arts may be the only chance supporters get. Mark Urycki, 90.3.