Signatures turned in for Larimer SCFD ballot issue

FORT COLLINS — A one-tenth of one percent sales tax to fund arts organizations in Larimer County took a step toward the November ballot on Wednesday.

Campaign organizers delivered more than 12,000 petition signatures — far more than the 7,252 they were told they needed — to the Larimer County Elections Department to secure a place on the ballot for the issue that would create a Scientific and Cultural Facilities District. Organizers and supporters marched from the Avery Carriage House to the county office with the petitions.

The district is being patterned after a similar district approved by Denver voters in 1989 that has been renewed in two subsequent elections. It paid out more than $54 million to more than 270 organizations, including some in Boulder County, in 2015 alone, and voters will decide this fall whether to extend it for 12 more years.

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According to organizers, the tax — a penny on each $10 purchase made in the county, excluding groceries, prescriptions, aviation fuel and other exemptions — would provide a $6.7 million “dedicated revenue stream” each year for science- and arts-related nonprofits and add what they estimate would be $75 million in economic impact, or “rollover dollars.”

Campaign manager Kelly Giddens said the sales tax, if passed by voters, would take effect Jan. 1, and a board of directors appointed by Larimer County commissioners would be in charge of distributing the funds to eligible organizations. The tax initially would be assessed for 10 years, after which voters would have to approve extending it.

Giddens said the county clerk has until Aug. 19 to determine whether enough valid signatures were gathered to place the issue on the Nov. 8 ballot.

“Our existing arts industry is a handful of groups using largely municipal spaces, and the majority are small, struggling not-for-profits,” said Bruce Freestone, co-founder of OpenStage Theatre, who is spearheading the effort, “This is dedicated money to shore them up, and we expect them to use this to expand. It’s a way to give a shot in the arm to that entire sector.

“The ‘rollover dollars’ are the additional spending that would generate,” he said, including “parking garages, restaurants, baby sitters, public transit — what the audiences would spend attending these functions. And also, it’s what the agencies might spend — like materials for sets at the hardware store — and then that store’s employees buy things.”

The arts are important to a region’s quality of life, he said. “These are the things you want to make sure your kids are signed up for, the things to bring out-of-town guests to.”

Campaign organizers say Denver’s SCFD — which also assesses a tenth-of-a-cent sales tax — has provided increased access and enhanced the quality of programs in natural history, natural sciences, visual arts, performing arts and cultural history as well as adding significantly to the metropolitan area’s economy.