Nashville artists and arts organizations that have been waiting for months to receive half the grant money promised by Metro Arts in 2023 finally have reason to be hopeful. However, serious questions remain about the future of arts funding in the city.
Metro Finance Director Kevin Crumbo has been withholding $2 million of city funding from Metro Arts over concerns about money management at the department. Today, Crumbo reversed course, saying he plans to release the $2 million, plus an additional $3 million of surplus city money. That surplus has not been publicly discussed before today.
Crumbo says this decision is part of a larger plan by Metro Finance to temporarily take over the financial operations of Metro Arts.
“We have gotten as much information from Metro Arts staff as we can get, without taking control of those books and records,” he said. “(This plan is) primarily driven by the Executive Director being absent, the staff there not having any direction.”
That’s a reference to Metro Arts Executive Director Daniel Singh, who is currently on medical leave because of what he characterizes as racism against him from others in metro government. Singh says this has negatively impacted his health.
In his announcement, Crumbo said that some of the money will go to Metro Arts’ operating budget, primarily to pay down what he says is a large deficit in the department. Metro Finance will use the rest of the money to pay what is still owed to the recipients of arts grant funding from the 2023-2024 grant cycle.
Elisheba Israel Mrozik, who leads the North Nashville Arts Coalition, says the arts community will immediately put the money to good use.
“(Artists can) fulfill their community-based visions and missions that will really impact and empower us all,” she said.
There is still uncertainty about the role of Metro Arts staff in Crumbo’s plans. Daryn Jackson, the Metro Arts Communications Manager, said the staff was given no advance notice before Crumbo announced the decision publicly this morning.
“(Staff) have not received any further direction or information beyond what was made available in the memo from Director Crumbo to Metro Council this morning. As such, we await further guidance,” she wrote in an email to WPLN.
Mayor Freddie O’Connell said this decision also resolves a dispute from last summer, when Metro Arts approved two different funding formulas which gave conflicting amounts to grantees.
“This should ensure that all artists and arts organizations publicly notified of awards for fiscal year 2024 have the opportunity to be funded according to the greater of either the July or August funding recommendations approved by the Metro Arts Commission,” O’Connell said at a news conference this morning.
A shifting power balance between Metro Departments
Another city department, the Metro Human Relations Commission (MHRC), is publicly taking credit for forcing Crumbo’s reversal. The MHRC ruled earlier this month that the later of the two Metro Arts funding formulas amounted to racial discrimination against some artists.
The MHRC’s ruling puts it at odds with Metro Legal, which last year advised Metro Arts to revoke the earlier of the two funding formulas. That resulted in funding being taken back from smaller organizations and independent artists who have been marginalized in arts funding historically. At a meeting this morning, MHRC chair Maryam Abolfazli said she felt an imbalance of power between her commission and Metro Legal, which has a much greater say in shaping city policy. She said today’s decision to fully fund Arts grantees shows the growing influence of the MHRC, which is meant to resolve discrimination complaints brought by Nashvillians against the city.
“It might be a change of power. You might have to acquiesce and you might have to sort of step away and allow others to speak and say things that maybe you’re not used to hearing in meetings. Maybe you’ve never had decisions be made that way,” she said.
Joy, and concern, in the arts community
Members of Nashville’s arts community expressed relief at the plan to give them the rest of the money they were promised by Metro Arts.
But some were concerned that this appropriation was a temporary fix for a much more systemic problem: The underfunding of arts by Nashville’s city government. Last year, Nashville appropriated about 0.16% of its budget to arts funding. At the news conference this morning, Mayor O’Connell declined to commit to putting a higher percentage of the budget toward arts this year.
“(Fiscal Year) ’25 is not going to be a year where we look to increase investments in much. We know that it’s going to be a tight year,” he said.
Finance Director Crumbo went even further. He said that, though he will pay funding recipients from last year, he opposes an increase in arts funding in 2024-25 because he doesn’t trust Metro Arts to handle its own budget.
“There’s not one more dollar of taxpayer money that’s going to go out there until we have all the financial affairs of that Metro Arts Commission in good order,” he said. “It really frustrates me to hear folks talk about putting more money into this until we can solve the problems that the Arts Commission and the executive director brought on themselves.”
Israel Mrozik of the North Nashville Arts Coalition said a failure to increase arts funding would mean a repeat of last year’s chaotic funding cycle, where organizations and artists fought over a very small pie.
“We have a surplus. We have the money, as a city. Why can’t you take care of your people?” she said. “If you want to keep your city a place where people want to come, then you’ve got to fund the arts.”
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