Area: City of Kent
Population: 79,524
Tax: $2/resident of Kent plus private donations
Use: Public Art
The city of Kent supports public art with an alternative to a percent-for-art policy. Since the city is small, and publicly financed construction has been limited, the city has employed a per-capita approach to public art funding. The policy, however, is not a tax - it is a dedicated funding method. Citizens do not pay the city for public art; rather, the policy ensures that each year a portion of the general fund is allocated, at a rate of $2 per citizen, to the public art fund administered by the city's arts commission. While the city has not undertaken many capital improvement projects, its population has continued to grow thanks to annexation and many new residents moving to Kent from other suburbs of Seattle. The recent influx of people has contributed to a steadily growing public art fund; allowing the arts commission to set aside funds into an endowment for larger projects the commission would like to initiate in the near future.
When the city budget was tightened in recent years the commission faced pressure from the city council to dip into the public art fund endowment to sustain operations and allow the city to use the per-capita allocation for other services. The commission reached a compromise that included splitting expenses with the city: half coming from the endowment and half from the general fund. Kent's arts commission recognizes that many cities have multiple public art funding revenue sources, and although the per-capita program has been successful, it is the only city program that provides support for the arts. The commission is currently working to generate additional revenue.
Unlike Seattle, its neighbor, Kent's admission tax does not support arts and culture. One effort to expand public art funding has been to establish partnerships with private developers. Through collaboration with the Department of Permitting and Building Services, the Arts Commission has reached out to private developers by assisting in providing artists and initial funding to encourage private developers to include public art in their projects. Ronda Billerbeck, Kent's Cultural Programs Manager, noted that since implementing the collaboration with other city departments, private developers have been responsive in working with the city to expand the public art program.
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