Funding for arts groups in Milwaukee County is in limbo after a County Board committee rejected allocating more than $300,000 already budgeted for 2025.
Forty-eight arts groups were scheduled to receive $6,413 each in October.
But on Tuesday, the Committee on Parks and Culture decided to revisit its plans to give each group the same amount of money.
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Committee Chair Sheldon Wasserman directed the group that makes recommendations on allocating county arts grants, known as the Cultural, Artistic and Musical Programming Advisory Council, to report back in December on how the distribution could be reallocated.
“Last year I sat right here and we brought up how we did not like the current ‘everything is equal’” way of doing allocations, Wasserman said. “Everyone’s just going to get their check. It’s just not fair.”
The money helps to fund groups including the Milwaukee Ballet, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and Milwaukee Repertory Theater. It also provides funding for smaller organizations such as Woodland Pattern, a book center in the Riverwest neighborhood, and the summer concert series Washington Park Wednesdays.
On Tuesday, Chad Bauman, executive director of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, testified that the money wasn’t enough, especially this year, after flooding three weeks ago caused $8 million in damage to the theater’s production facility in Wauwatosa.
Bauman asked the board to reconsider giving equal amounts of money to every art group.
“The system that you have gives an equal grant whether we are serving one Milwaukee County resident or more than 100,000 Milwaukee County residents, which we do,” Bauman said.
James Tarantino, deputy director of Milwaukee County Parks, said he feels a sense of obligation to speak for the smaller organizations.
He mentioned the Washington Park concert series that just ended. The artists have been paid, and the small organization is expecting the money to be reimbursed, Tarantino said.
The committee’s decision on Tuesday means none of the groups will get their money in October, as they had expected.
After the vote, Christine Hojnacki, executive director of ImagineMKE, said she’s encouraged some of the board members engaged in conversation and recognized the importance of increased and equitable investment in arts and culture.
“While the budget was already approved, my hope is that arts organizations receive funding distribution for this current year, laying the groundwork for stronger support in the future,” Hojnacki said.
Some who weighed in with the committee had asked for funding to be increased.
More than 40 emails from arts groups and supporters were sent to county supervisors before the meeting, asking them to reject the planned allocation — not because it was inequitable, but because the funding had already been cut.
The $6,413 allocated to each group was going to be about 30 percent less than the $9,269 the groups received last year.
That’s because the County Board budgeted less for the arts. In 2024, a total of $407,825 was budgeted for the Milwaukee County Fund for the Arts. This year, the budget was reduced to $307,825. There are also four more groups that applied for funding this year, Tarantino said.
After the vote, Bauman sent a letter to the committee, asking them to release the current allocations now, and then thoughtfully revisit the funding process.
“I’m also concerned that this issue is being framed as a ‘large vs. small’ organization debate,” Bauman wrote, adding he was encouraged to see how quickly people mobilized to speak out about the cuts. “The deeper problem is Milwaukee County’s chronic underfunding of the arts. Collectively, we serve hundreds of thousands of county residents, who can share why their access to arts and culture are important to them.”
Wisconsin ranks last in arts funding
Wisconsin ranks last in the nation in arts funding, spending 18 cents per capita. Minnesota spends $9.67 per person and Illinois spends $5.11 per person on arts funds.
Milwaukee’s sole sources of local government support for the arts are the Milwaukee Arts Board — which is part of city government and distributes about $250,000 in grants — and the Milwaukee County Fund for the Arts through the county, according to a 2024 report by the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
County Supervisor Steve Taylor said arts funding has never been a priority for Milwaukee County or the state of Wisconsin. And that likely won’t change.
“All the elected officials, Republicans and Democrats, have made the decision in Madison that we have other priorities and the arts is at the very bottom,” Taylor said. “That’s what the state of Wisconsin has determined. There’s nothing that Milwaukee County can do.”
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