Editorial | With compromise on arts funding, SC County buys some time on budget pain

When the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors rejected a unpopular-before-the-fact parking fee for county parks, the board also set in motion difficult decisions about how to balance a $1.29 billion county budget.

At the center of a dispute last week was a funding trade-off between local arts programming and county parks maintenance.

Going into last week's budget hearings, the county administrators were having to pencil in strategic cutbacks to deal with an expected $23 million deficit in part by keeping vacant some 58 positions from a county workforce expected to number 2,683 in 2026-27.

To plug the remaining deficit and maintain core park services, county staff proposed severe cuts to local cultural contracts. Among the recommendations was completely eliminating a $170,046 contract with Arts Council Santa Cruz County and slashing funding to the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH) by 50%, saving an additional $77,297.

Arts advocates quickly warned that defunding the Arts Council would wipe out more than half of its local granting budget, severely impacting dozens of community dance, music and cultural troupes. The MAH sounded similar dire predictions.

As we wrote two weeks ago, Santa Cruz County Executive Officer Nicole Coburn and county Budget Manager Marcus Pimentel were compelled to get creative in putting together the upcoming budget in a time of great reimbursement uncertainty in the face of the Trump administration's H.R. 1, Big Beautiful Bill's cutbacks, and the governor's aim to severely restrict Medi-Cal (the state's version of Medicaid for lower-income residents needing healthcare coverage).

Facing protests from Santa Cruz County's robust arts community, supervisors instructed Coburn and her staff to find alternative cost-trimming fixes.

The stated goal was to craft a revised proposal before Tuesday that preserves most of the $170,046 Arts Council contract (which covers over half of the Arts Council's annual granting budget) and the $77,297 museum allocation without requiring a reduction in services at the Simpkins Swim Center.

The supervisors asked if county staff could instead pull funding from alternative sources like Measure K or Measure Q local tax revenues to prevent the arts from being wiped out in order to balance the budget.

Measure K is a half-cent countywide sales tax passed by voters in March 2024. The revenue goes into the county General Fund, meaning the board has broad statutory flexibility. Measure Q (approved by county voters in November 2024) levies an $87 annual parcel tax that generates roughly $7.3 million annually. By law, Measure Q funds are strictly restricted to environmental, water and park infrastructure protection.

Officials sought to see whether a small portion of Measure K revenue could be earmarked to replace the missing cultural funds and if Measure Q funds could offset the park department's deficit. This would free up General Fund money to restore the contracts for the Arts Council and the MAH.

These moves enable the supervisors to give final approval to the 2026-27 budget Tuesday that includes a smaller 15% reduction in funding for both Arts Council and the MAH ­- a far better outcome for both than the initial proposals that put in place more drastic cuts.

The agreement was hailed by MAH Executive Director Ginger Shulick Porcella, who said in a statement that it was "important for the Arts Council and the MAH to propose a solution where the greatest number of artists and organizations would benefit, without having to eliminate core services. It just shows that there is always a way through with thoughtful conversation and collaboration." Porcella deserves credit for helping find a compromise ­- and for her diligent efforts to get the museum out of the debts she inherited.

In the end, supervisors and county staff have bought some time. Coburn concluded last Wednesday's meeting by saying that many more difficult challenges await the board in the months and years ahead.

"I can guarantee you these budget hearings next year are going to be much harder than this year," she said.

The county has a year to prepare local organizations and residents that as state and federal revenues and reimbursements continue to decline and across-the-board costs increase, this year's difficult budget decisions, as Coburn told the Sentinel Editorial Board earlier this month, are only "the tip of the iceberg."

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