SCFD: Permanent or Term Limited

Photo: Steve Gadomski / Adobe Stock

Should the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) tax be permanent or continue the use of voter-approved term limits?

1. The use of a term limit on the SCFD’s 0.1% sales tax was begun because many political leaders and others were concerned about giving permanent dedicated tax funding to potentially hundreds of mostly non-government entities with private boards, many with little or no track record of receiving government funding (aside from occasional grants for specific projects) without a voter check on the program. Legislation behind the term limit was to increase accountability of tax revenue spending over a specific time period. Use of a term limit provided an argument that if there was misuse of funds or if the program failed to achieve its purpose, voters could end the tax.
2. The term was seen as a major incentive to keep the recipients and programs focused on their cultural missions while also providing maximum accessibility and careful money management.
3. A term was also used to provide certainty in funding over a specific time period for planning and financial commitments to support major exhibitions, performers, and other programming.
4. Most of the SCFD statutes’ funding was not a grant program. It was considered important to place the formulas in the voter-approved statute to avoid the experience of the 1980’s National Endowment for the Arts’ grants controlled by the tastes and preferences of art connoisseurs, interest groups, and politicians. Formulas avoided authorities’ ability to skew the funding for unspecified purposes. Only the legislature and voters could change them, not at a terms renewal.
5. A renewal at the end of a term limit provides a period where the statute and formulas can be improved and updated by the legislators and voters.
6. When asked a choice question in a past-poll, voters preferred a term limit over permanence. (See table below.)

Voters’ Views on Sunset Provision	Total	Dem.	Inde.	Rep.
Sunset: The cultural district has a sunset provision that means every twelve years or so metro residents get to vote for or against extending the tax. They have extended it three times in elections starting in 1988. [ROTATED].
The district tax should be made permanent. The voters support it, it’s needed and it works. We don’t need more elections to extend the tax.	20%	24%	16%	19%
The district tax should be voted on every 12 years or so to make sure it keeps working the way we want it to and is still needed.	78	72	82	78

Ciruli Associates/CATZ 2013