Denver's Scientific and Cultural Facilities District: A Case Study in Regionalism.

• Author: Hansberry, Jane

In 1988, citizens in metropolitan Denver voted three-to-one to increase taxes to support arts and cultural organizations through a regional cultural asset district known as the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District. This article explores what led to that vote and what has taken place since.

On November 8, 1988, during the worst regional recession in decades, citizens in metropolitan Denver, Colorado, voted three-to-one to increase their sales tax to support the region's scientific and cultural facilities. That day marked the beginning of a new division of local government in Colorado--the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD).

The 1988 vote was an extraordinary event for three reasons. First, it was counter-intuitive that citizens would vote for a tax increase in such bad economic times. Second, it was a vote to provide public support for arts and cultural organizations at a time when many pundits doubted the public's willingness to support culture with tax dollars. Third, the vote established a regional basis for supporting cultural organizations, many of which were located in the core city. The region that was created comprised Denver and the five surrounding suburban counties.

Background

Several events led to the November 1988 vote to support the scientific and cultural facilities. First and foremost was the loss of state funds to the institutions. As a result, trustees developed a legislative strategy, and a bill outlining the cultural district was introduced into the state legislature. Then, cultural organizations launched a campaign to sell the cultural tax.

Loss of State Funds

In 1982, the City of Denver's major cultural institutions, namely the Denver Art Museum, the Denver Zoo, the Denver Botanic Gardens, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (referred to hereafter as the "Big Four"), lost the state funding they had enjoyed for half a century. The City and County of Denver (Denver is a combined city/county jurisdiction) already provided nearly half these institutions' annual budgets, and they were unable to make up the shortfall. Denver was experiencing a loss of revenue and population to the suburbs that exacerbated a regional and state-wide recession and population emigration.

The institutions were forced to seek new sources of funding. They set up foundations and raised fees, but neither of these strategies, nor others that they employed, were able to mitigate the loss of state funds. In fact, the strategies of new and increased fees had driven attendance down, furthering financial losses and curtailing planned exhibits and programming.

A Strategy Takes Hold

In 1983, faced with rapidly deteriorating finances, the trustees of the four institutions began to discuss and explore their options. A chance encounter between a Denver Art Museum trustee and a trustee from the St. Louis Art Museum would prove fortuitous. From this meeting, the Denver trustee learned of the St. Louis Metropolitan Zoological Park and Museum District, which were created in 1971 through a referendum. The St. Louis District provided a regional base of support for the city's museums and zoos with property tax revenues. The Denver trustee took hold of the idea as a possible framework for how the Denver cultural organizations might proceed. [1] A regional funding base would provide a more equitable basis of financial support than reliance on the City and County of Denver alone. Surveys of attendance and membership rosters supported this plan by indicating that the majority of visitors to the four cultural institutions were residents of suburban counties outside of Denver.

From 1983 to 1986 when the first enabling legislation for the creation of a tax district was proposed, trustees from the Big Four institutions worked through political and legislative strategies. In the past, these institutions had viewed each other as competitors and had very little history of collaboration. They had learned, however, that the best legislative and political case could be made together, and not as separate entities.

The strategy was to find legislators willing to sponsor enabling legislation for a Denver metro-area sales tax district encompassing Denver and the surrounding suburban counties--Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Douglas, and Jefferson. These were the same boundaries as the Regional Transportation District and would prove to be a boost for the cultural district concept because a "regional footprint" already was established.

The proposed rate of .1 percent sales tax would raise $13 million. The plan was to direct 75 percent of the revenue to the Big Four, and give the remaining...