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Bravo restores funding for arts and culture

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Earlier this year, Bravo Greater Des Moines had an uncertain future, which is hard to believe now, based on its accomplishments over the past several months.

Bravo, the organization created in November 2004 to replace the Des Moines Cultural Alliance, awarded $1.7 million in grants to 36 cultural and arts organizations in 2005. These grants were funded with hotel-motel tax revenues collected from Des Moines, Johnston, Clive, West Des Moines, Urbandale and Polk County.

Through the tax revenues collected from these cities, Bravo was able to restore funding to several cultural venues in Greater Des Moines that had fallen victim to budget cuts in recent years, and make smaller grants to other organizations as well.

“Our goal was really to stabilize, or get the funding restored close to what it was in 2002,” said attorney Steve Zumbach, Bravo’s outgoing president. Zumbach said fiscal 2002 is used as a “base year” for comparison because significant budget cuts were instituted after that year.

After agreeing to support Bravo in fiscal 2005-06, these five cities and Polk

County contributed an additional $600,000 for arts and culture over the previous fiscal year.

“There were many heroes in this process,” Zumbach said. “I think the local officials really stepped up and did an outstanding job to meet the challenge. These are tough budgetary times, and finding money to make something happen takes political courage.”

Earlier this year, Windsor Heights voluntarily signed an agreement with Bravo, and the organization has also received additional funding from corporate donations and gifts from organizations such as Winefest Des Moines. This fall, Winefest presented Bravo with a donation of $100,000, a significant increase over its $40,000 gift in 2004.

Bravo is now finalizing agreements with Ankeny and Altoona to receive two-sevenths of their hotel-motel tax revenues in fiscal 2006-07. The tax revenues from these two communities will generate an additional $142,000 for Bravo and boost its available funding for arts and cultural organizations to $1.9 million.

The next step for Bravo, Zumbach said, is to create a plan to solicit funding from other communities that want to support regional culture and arts, but do not have hotels or motels from which to collect taxes. But Bravo’s prospects might change in 2006, depending on what develops from the Greater Des Moines Partnership’s proposed 1-percent local option sales tax and another proposal expected to come before the Iowa Legislature in 2006 to raise hotel-motel taxes by 2 percent. Both of these measures would create more permanent sources of funding for quality-of-life items, including arts and culture.

Jay Byers, the Partnership’s senior vice president of government relations and public policy, said it’s not likely that the Legislature will pass a hotel-motel tax increase next year. But, he said, the Partnership may bring a referendum for the 1-percent local option sales tax to voters in Polk, Warren and Dallas counties sometime in 2006.

“We’re hoping for the passage of the local option sales tax, which would be a substantially large source of funding for the arts, culture and recreation,” Zumbach said. “If passed, that would augment or replace Bravo.”

On Feb. 3, Bravo will host Bravo Awards, an event to recognize individuals and companies for their support for the arts. The event will also generate revenue to cover the organization’s administrative costs.