Two new reports released Thursday provide fresh evidence that robust public funding for the arts provided by Cuyahoga County’s cigarette tax is supporting a nationally significant cultural sector.
Nevertheless, one of the reports looks ahead for potential new sources of public support beyond the cigarette tax, a levy slated to end in 2035.
The nonprofit Assembly for the Arts, a regional arts council, commissioned the study of alternative funding sources from SMU Data Arts and Lord Consulting to spark discussion among cultural leaders and supporters to start looking now for additional ways to support the arts across Greater Cleveland.
“The whole point is we don’t want to wait too late to understand how we would respond to the expiration of that funding,” said Jeremy Johnson, Assembly’s president and CEO.
“We need to be thinking about CAC (Cuyahoga Arts and Culture) and we need to be thinking, are there other ways or additional ways (to fund the arts)?” he said.
What it does
The cigarette tax supports Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, a political subdivision of the State of Ohio akin to Cleveland Metroparks. CAC distributes the proceeds of the tax to hundreds of cultural organizations and projects every year. Ideastream Public Media is a beneficiary.
County voters first passed a 30-cent-a-pack tax on cigarettes in 2006 to fund CAC for 10 years, followed by a 10-year renewal vote in 2015. In 2024, an increase of the tax from 30 to 70 cents per pack was approved by roughly 70% of voters.
The total raised by the tax between 2006 and 2025 was $270 million, according to CAC’s website. Yet over the two decades, a pattern emerged: Tax receipts declined as the number of smokers fell and sales decreased.
In 2025, before the increase from 2024 took full hold, the tax generated $11.3 million for distribution by CAC. This year, thanks to the increase, the annual total is expected to reach $18 million, CAC said in an email. But that’s the equivalent of just under $11 million in 2006 dollars, adjusted for inflation.
“Common-sense projections show a decrease of roughly $1 million per year over the next decade,” CAC said. The tax expires in January 2035 unless it’s renewed.
First in class
The second new report issued Thursday, authored by SMU DataArts with support from Bloomberg Associates, a pro bono consulting firm that’s part of Bloomberg Philanthropies, showed that thanks to the cigarette tax and other sources, Cleveland is a top performer in local public arts funding per capita and total revenue.
The report ranked Cleveland No. 1 revenue growth among arts organizations from 2019 to 2024 in a cohort of 10 U.S. cities. The others were Atlanta, Des Moines, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Sacramento and Seattle.
Bloomberg’s David Andersson, a co-author of the study, said the statistic was “a measure showing that people want arts and culture, they’re giving money to arts and culture, whether it’s through donations or purchasing tickets.”
The study also showed that Cleveland was number one in per capita local government grants to cultural organizations, at 10 cents per capita. Philadelphia was last, at one cent per capita.
“I’ve never been to Cleveland and I feel like I’m missing out by not having been there, looking at this data,” Andersson said.
Finding new sources of support
To keep public arts funding strong in Greater Cleveland, the SMU Data Arts study examined strategies and practices in Denver, Pittsburgh, Portland, Ore., Minneapolis and Columbus.
The report’s authors highlighted the multi-county approach of the Allegheny Regional Asset District, or RAD, based in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, as a possible model worth emulating. The district levies a 1% sales tax generating $120 million, the report said. Half of that money is used by 128 municipalities to support local tax relief and half supports libraries, parks, and arts and culture organizations.
The report also highlighted the “layered” approach of Columbus, where it said the nonprofit Greater Columbus Arts Council distributes revenue from a 5% ticket fee on large-scale commercial events over 400 seats, along with funds from the city’s bed tax and county general funds.
Jen Benoit-Bryan, the executive director of SMU Data Arts and an arts management professor at Southern Methodist University, said that Cleveland is in an enviable position as it seeks ways to ensure strong public funding for the arts in the future.
“Cleveland sits at such a remarkable place in which it has this public funding that has provided as stable and critical support,’’ she said, “but it also has a really engaged population who clearly participates in and benefits from the arts and believes in its value.”
