A recent guest opinion by two Boulder City Council members, Mark Wallach and Matt Benjamin, denounced the county’s funding allocation for the Affordable and Attainable Housing Tax, also known as Ballot Question 1B. This ballot measure was passed by 71% of Boulder County voters in November 2023 and is predicted to generate $17 million for county-wide affordable housing initiatives in its first year.

The Council members’ concerns include excessive administrative expenses, an “innovation fund,” allocation of a funding reserve, and scant allocation of money to the cities of Boulder and Longmont vs. the remainder of the county.

“None of this meets any reasonable standard of good governance, or fair and transparent policymaking,” they declare. And ten community organizations agree with their assessment, calling for more public input.

While I agree with their concerns, I’d encourage them to take a step back. The City of Boulder has done the exact same thing with the arts funding Ballot Measure 2A, also passed in November, 2023 by 75% of Boulder voters. That ballot measure renewed a sales tax and split the proceeds of approximately $7 million between the general fund and the arts.

The 2A ballot language specified the following fund use: “direct and grant funding for arts and culture nonprofits, professional artists, arts education, venues and workspaces, public art, and multi-cultural programs.”

Nowhere does the ballot measure allow spending on administrative costs or staffing. Despite this explicit language, the city’s 2025 budget shifted 100% of arts and cultural funding from the General Fund, instead using only the new 2A dollars. The City allocated 36% of the expenditures to city staffing for the Office of Arts and Culture of $676,135; cost allocation to general fund of $151,566; and reserves of $302,992. This “overhead” skims 36% of the funds off the top before community programs, grants, public arts or other intended uses of the tax fund. The highest priority recipients, our valued cultural nonprofits will see grants of less than $1.5 million, hardly the transformation envisioned by ballot sponsors.

In addition, the city pushed the cultural planning process from 2024 to 2025 and has allocated $165,250 of 2A funds for that purpose. So, a staggering 41% of 2A’s 2025 budget is being absorbed by internal city resources. I would ask our council members, so incensed by the County’s behavior, to justify their own “good governance.”

As a data point for best-in-class tax management, the Scientific Cultural Facilities District (SCFD), a seven-county tax for arts, science and culture is managed with state-mandated 1.5% overhead, compared to the 41% for Boulder’s 2A.

Good governance would ensure that our elected city officials would be guarding against this type of behavior. But, the city’s budget would cause any skilled accountant’s eyes to gloss over. Divided into incomprehensible sections like “responsibly governed,” “environmentally sustainable,” “healthy and socially thriving,” it takes a monumental effort to research a particular budget. Both Wallach and Benjamin complained on the City’s Hotline about the difficulty of understanding the budget, but they let the City Manager off the hook, apparently shrugging their shoulders at their inability to cause change.

Our local governments, enriched with many sources of revenue, should manage as closely as possible to the intention of voters as described in the language of voter-approved ballot measures. In the county’s housing measure, voters clearly supported housing to be built, and it should be fairly allocated across the county with very little overhead.

For the 2A Arts measure, the language of the ballot measure was very clear. City staff and City Council should stop pointing fingers at the County when they appear to be obfuscating and picking the pockets of the creative community who fought so hard for this cultural support — support that not only ensures that our core nonprofits can stay in Boulder, but whose efforts bring in real revenue, adding even more to the city’s coffers.

Council members Wallach and Benjamin would do well by implementing their own recommendation — sitting down in good faith and dealing with the arts community, equitably and transparently. After all, would any City Council member think that 2A would have passed with 41% set aside for administrative fees and staffing? Highly unlikely.

Jan Burton is a former Boulder City Council member and sits on the Board of Create Boulder, the organization responsible for the 2A ballot measure.