Cuyahoga County Council recently voted unanimously to put a tax levy on the November ballot. The proposed levy would increase the price of cigarettes in the county from 1.5 cents per cigarette to 3.5 cents each. The increased revenue would fund Cuyahoga Arts & Culture, an organization that supports local arts groups and artists through grants.
What is Cuyahoga Arts & Culture?
Cuyahoga County residents voted for a tax on cigarettes for the sole purpose of funding arts programming and culture in 2006. Cuyahoga Arts & Culture (CAC) was formed to collect and distribute that money through grants to nonprofit arts organizations in the county. The Cuyahoga County Council appoints board members and approves ballot measures, but CAC is not a county entity — it is an “independent political subdivision” like a library system.
CAC has distributed around $246 million through about 4,000 grants. Current recipients include the African-American theater Karamu House, the Cleveland Association of Black Storytellers, and the Cleveland Pops Orchestra.
Voters renewed the cigarette tax to continue funding in 2015, but since 2007, the revenue has dropped by almost half as the cigarette smoking population declines. The levy does not apply to vapes or other tobacco products.
When the CAC launched, their tax revenue was $19 million. CAC Executive Director Jill Paulsen said in an interview that they now support about double the number of grant recipients with half the revenue.
The cigarette tax is CAC’s only funding source. Paulsen said the CAC doesn’t fundraise because they don’t want to compete with the organizations they are funding.
Using tax to fund the arts
Cuyahoga County is the only county in Ohio that has a dedicated tax revenue stream to fund arts. Other counties use private foundations or money that is allotted from their general budget.
Paulsen said the arts community has looked at taxing other things, like shopping bags, bottled water or restaurant meals, but other options are already taxed or prohibited by state law. State legislation that would have allowed the county to tax vaping was reversed not long after passage last year because collection methods for vape tax revenues did not exist.
The conundrum with smokers
Cleveland has one of the highest rates of adult cigarette smokers in the country at 35%. People of color and those who are economically disadvantaged are more likely to smoke, studies show, thus the cigarette tax impacts these groups the most. Additionally, there is a perception among some that the arts in general are activities for the upper class and not accessible to the low-income population that is paying to fund them.
CAC Director of Grantmaking Strategy & Communications, Jake Sinatra, disagrees. He said CAC makes grants to arts programs throughout the county, including lower-income areas, and that participants tend to be a broad cross-section of the wider community.
According to CAC’s 2022 Annual Report, the number of grant-receiving organizations led by or serving people of color has tripled since 2016. Sinatra said CAC wants to meet members of the community where they are at, and about half of the arts programming they fund is free to attend.
The World Health Organization says that raising the cost of cigarettes through taxes “is the single most effective and cost-effective measure for reducing tobacco use.”
What to expect
If voters approve the levy, the tax is expected to bring in $160 million over 10 years. The cigarette tax is collected based on wholesale purchases by dealers who then sell to retailers for resale to customers, not by individual pack sales, though consumers can expect to see an increase in the price of a pack by approximately 30 to 40 cents.
Advocates for the tax levy will be distributing literature and speaking to voters at events throughout the summer. The levy will appear on the Board of Elections’ ballot for Cuyahoga County in the upcoming November election.
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