San Diego County’s Unusual Approach to Arts Funding

San Diego County’s approach to funding arts organizations is unusual, and some question whether it’s fair and yields the best results. Naturally, many arts advocates would prefer a process under which county funds are set aside specifically for the arts and then administered by an arts oversight panel designated by the county Board of Supervisors. That panel, often called an arts council, would be recognized by the California Arts Council through the State-Local Partnership Program, which provides modest annual funding and assistance.

The state’s support is partly what makes having an arts council a no-brainer for counties. Fifty of the 58 counties in California have an arts council. Seven of the remaining eight that don’t are either small or sparsely populated. While not all of the county arts councils are funding agencies, they do support and promote the arts countywide.

“The people on a county arts council are the only ones who wake up in the morning thinking about how they can improve the arts-and-culture ecosystem of the entire region,” said Daniel Foster, executive director of the Oceanside Museum of Art, who helped form an arts council in San Bernardino County in 2010. “There’s all this potential in a county’s arts community that’s untapped when everyone is in silos.”

Local arts-and-culture organizations have been left without such a resource since 1993, when the San Diego County Public Arts Advisory Council was defunded. Some arts leaders say it’s time to bring it back.