The future of Bravo Greater Des Moines hinges on the budgeting decisions being made right now by Polk County and five city governments, some of which are struggling with how to squeeze in the cultural arts group’s request for funding under budget constraints.

“It’s a very critical time for us,” said Steven Zumbach, the chairman of Bravo Greater Des Moines. “We need to get this local government support component in place before we move forward. That’s the building block on which the rest will follow.”

Bravo Greater Des Moines, the group created last fall to replace the Des Moines Cultural Alliance, wants to increase funding for regional arts and cultural attractions by collecting two-sevenths of the revenues generated by the 7 percent hotel-motel tax in Polk County, Des Moines, Johnston, Urbandale, West Des Moines and Clive.

“What we are trying to do is find a uniform plan for the entire community, so everyone is contributing an equitable amount,” Zumbach said. “The hotel-motel tax is a predictable and dependable source of revenue, and it’s important to understand that to build strong culture in our communities, we need to pull from a predictable source of revenue.”

Bravo would subtract money cities have committed to the Iowa Events Center and Principal Park from the two-sevenths the cities would devote to the arts and culture. The estimated $2 million Bravo would receive from hotel taxes would be an increase over the $1.2 million the cities allotted in 2004-2005 to attractions such as the Des Moines Botanical Center, Living History Farms and Blank Park Zoo – a few of Bravo’s 15 member organizations. Zumbach said funding for culture and the arts can no longer be on the back burner, and he sees cities making a “good-faith effort” to satisfy his group’s request.

“The community contributions should really be viewed as a restoration of what had been going toward culture and the arts in the communities up until a few years ago,” Zumbach said.

Early on, the city of Des Moines said it supported Bravo’s request, contingent on the support of the other communities. According to Leann Jacobson, a Bravo spokeswoman, West Des Moines, Johnston and Clive have recently set aside funding for the arts group in their preliminary budgets, and the Urbandale City Council is in the process of putting an estimate together for its contribution. Urbandale Mayor Don Brush said that although the city applauds Bravo’s mission, “there’s only so much money to go around.”

“I wish we had a few more dollars so we could make everyone happy,” Brush said. “We are very supportive of Bravo’s mission to formalize funding for the cultural arts, and we want to be a part of it, although we’re not able to commit at the level they’ve asked us to because there are only so many dollars we have, and we have made previous commitments, specifically to the ice arena.”

The city of Urbandale is paying $100,000 per year from its hotel taxes to purchase the land beneath the Des Moines Buccaneers’ hockey rink. Brush said the city has carried the brunt of the support of the ice arena, which makes money tight.

“I hope that we’re not perceived as misers,” Brush said. “We are very supportive of Bravo; yet, we have taken on some commitments of our own with the ice arena, when nobody else wanted to participate. We see that as support on a regional level, and I hope that some consideration will be given for what we already have pledged our funds to.”

Johnston Mayor Brian Laurenzo says his city’s preliminary contribution to Bravo is in line with the group’s request, but is conditional on the other cities participating.

“We are supportive of Bravo to the extent that everyone participates,” Laurenzo said. “I think it’s important that we support our cultural attractions on a regional basis, since we have residents in every city that benefit from them.”

Laurenzo said each city needs to play a proportional role in supporting Bravo from the start, but he realizes that the timing poses challenges for some communities, such as Urbandale.

“I think that we would be willing to be somewhat flexible on the two-sevenths initially so long as each city has a plan to meeting the goal in the near future,” he said.

Johnston’s annual contribution to regional arts and attractions would increase from about $17,500 to $45,855 under Bravo’s plan. The northwestern suburb has traditionally used its hotel tax revenue to support its trail system and other attractions, chamber of commerce and economic development, and Laurenzo said the city is prepared to make “some hard decisions” to fulfill Bravo’s request, “so long as everyone else will do it.”

Last week, the city of West Des Moines set aside funding for Bravo in its preliminary budget, after getting approval to reduce its annual payment to the Iowa Events Center by extending the contract, according to City Manager Jeff Pomerantz. Pomerantz estimates that West Des Moines’ contribution to the arts group will be about $430,000 for 2005-2006, if approved. Their contribution is not contingent on the participation of other cities.

If the five cities and the county come on board with Bravo’s proposal, the next step would be introducing a private-sector fund-raising component. Ankeny and Altoona would also be asked in a year to share their cities’ hotel-motel tax revenue, and more money could be set aside for Bravo from the Greater Des Moines Partnership’s proposed 1-percent local option sales tax, if it becomes law. But nothing will happen until the public-sector support is secured in the next few months, when cities vote to approve their final budgets.

“We need those public funds as the foundation for increasing overall support from the business community, private individuals, foundations and government,” Zumbach said. “When your job is to fund street repair, fire, police services, it’s easier to cut something like culture and the arts. But as we better understand the role that culture and the arts play in the economic vitality of communities – keeping people interested in living there and attracting new businesses – we need to put in place dependable and predictable sources of revenue in order to have first-class offerings for the communities.”