Any newspaper that guards its credibility refrains from using its bully pulpit for gratuitous self-congratulation. We’re no exception. However, in this case, the leadership behind a plan to ask West Des Moines residents to voluntarily support the metro area’s cultural programs falls so squarely on the shoulders of one of our own – Councilwoman Loretta Sieman, one of our parent company’s corporate officers – that we’d be remiss if we let it pass without comment.

Until last week, West Des Moines City Council members were resigned to reducing subsidies to cultural organizations, which most saw as their only option to make up for the $650,000 deficit caused by a cut in state aid that came two months after the city had certified its fiscal 2004 spending plan. We think Siemen is right, that if asked to do so, West Des Moines residents will give $10 – more if their individual household budgets can spare it – to maintain at current levels the city’s financial support for Cultural Alliance programs, the Greater Des Moines Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Eddie Davis Community Center.

It’s still only a temporary solution. However, the extent to which West Des Moines residents support the voluntary “tax” could be the catalyst for a better, more permanent resolution to a vexing problem for local governments: funding cultural attractions in lean fiscal times. A more formalized regional services levy would erase jurisdictional lines and take a common-sense approach that recognizes, for example, that though Des Moines may be the physical address of the Des Moines Arts Center, its world-class collection makes it a metrowide – if not statewide – attraction. It’s only fair that metro area cities share equally in ensuring its continued existence.

If ever there were an issue to frame the need for a regional services tax levy, the ongoing threat to Greater Des Moines’ cultural institutions and programs is it. Many of us are patrons of the arts and organizations the Cultural Alliance supports, but even if we aren’t, we recognize that they make our communities more livable. Study after study has confirmed that an abundance of rich cultural opportunities is as important in luring new companies and their workers to Iowa as tax incentives and other government giveaways.

It’s important for citizens, who benefit from the expanded tax base that growth creates, to recognize how painful the last few budgeting cycles have been for local governments and the services that depend on their financial support, and to vote with their checkbooks for the extras that make a community unique.