Colorado is U.S. Cultural Leader

The latest National Endowment for the Arts study of cultural participation ranks Colorado at the top or near the top among the fifty states in a host of categories of cultural activity. Colorado’s extraordinary participation rates were partially attributed to voters having approved the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) in 1988.

The importance of the SCFD was cited for funding the growth and improvement in art, cultural and scientific organizations throughout the Denver metro area. And equally important, it has provided access to families and children regardless of economic means.

Twenty-eight years of the SCFD program has contributed to generations of involvement with young generations now becoming parents and adults contributing to the record-levels of cultural participation.

Hunt also credited the metro area’s Scientific and Cultural Facilities District which voters first passed in 1988. It's been responsible for the funding and growth of some 300 arts, culture and science organizations across the seven-county metro area. “They make arts and cultural facilities accessible to children and people that who may not have the economic means to pay the admission price," Hunt said. "We may be seeing now, after about a 30-year period, that translating into greater participation." (Margaret Hunt, Executive Director of Colorado Creative Industries, talking to CPR’s Jo Ann Allen, 9/1/16)

Colorado’s rankings track with the high arts-participation rates in Western states in general, the NEA said. But the Colorado results in particular seem to validate the seven-county metro area’s Scientific and Cultural Facilities District program – a voter-approved tax district that supports art, music, theater, dance and museums, said Margaret Hunt, executive director of Colorado Creative Industries. (Denver Post, 8/31/16)

The SCFD renewal will be Ballot Issue 4B, located near the end of the long 2016 Colorado ballot. It will read:

DENVER METROPOLITAN SCIENTIFIC CULTURAL FACILITIES DISTRICT (SCFD) BALLOT ISSUE 4B:

SHALL THERE BE AN EXTENSION UNTIL JUNE 30, 2030, OF THE AGGREGATE 0.1 PERCENT SALES AND USE TAXES CURRENTLY LEVIED AND COLLECTED BY THE DENVER METROPOLITAN SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL FACILITIES DISTRICT THAT ARE SCHEDULED TO EXPIRE ON JUNE 30, 2018, FOR ASSISTING SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL FACILITIES WITHIN THE DISTRICT…

Please vote to renew the SCFD and keep Colorado’s acclaimed program of culture for all in place for another 12 years.