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Mayor Lily Wu says she has no immediate plans to push to cut roughly $1.8 million in annual funding for public arts projects as the Wichita City Council prepares to adopt its 2025 budget next week.
The Eagle asked Wu to clarify her position after she sought direction from Manager Robert Layton on how the council could roll back a 2019 ordinance guaranteeing 2% of capital project funds for the creation and installation of original visual artwork in public buildings and spaces.
“To be very honest with you, I’m not looking at that as one of the options right now,” Wu said Thursday. “I again want to see all options available first before we make any decisions, and we’re going to make decisions from the bench.”
The idea of scaling back the city’s art investment was floated by resident Faith Martin during Tuesday’s budget hearing as one measure that could be taken to help plug Wichita’s projected $23 million budget shortfall over the next three years. The capital improvement program, a separate pool of money from the city’s general fund, is approved every year alongside the budget.
“As we’re all tightening our belts, the city is having to do the same thing,” Martin said. “I would say, when we look at parks and libraries and roads and public safety, those are really priority things.
“Maybe we look at amending that public code [guaranteeing art funding] when we have a shortfall,” Martin said. “Not that I am against the arts. I love the arts. I love supporting local artists. I love supporting our local art community. But when we look at what the core services are, we may have to walk that back until we can get ourselves to where we have a little more budget.”
Wu questioned if all of the art elements included in the new water treatment plant have already been purchased. “If not, are there any opportunities to scale that back?” she asked.
Lindsay Benacka, the city’s arts and culture director, said all three art pieces for the project have already been purchased at a combined cost of approximately $1.2 million. One sculpture has already been installed and the other two pieces will be installed in short order.
“There’s not really a return option for those,” Benacka said.
Wu then turned her attention to the 2019 ordinance, which gives the design council authority to designate projects with a public art component, including “permanent visual art, creative restoration or repurposing of unique architectural features, ornamentation or details, artist-designed infrastructure and structures themselves.” That ordinance didn’t expand arts funding but more or less codified existing funding levels.
“Are there opportunities, as the speaker asked the question, to scale back some of the $1.8 million designated to art per year?” Wu asked. Layton said that would require an ordinance change.
“Can we get an email regarding the process if that is something?” Wu asked. “Again, I want to get all the information on how this 2 percent — I’ve looked at the beautiful art that we do have. But I also know that we have to maintain that art as well . . . I want to make sure that maintenance is really the top priority.”
City code specifies that no more than 10% of money dedicated to arts in any given year can be spent on maintenance.
Opposition to art cuts
Council members Brandon Johnson and Becky Tuttle both denounced the idea of backtracking on the 2019 commitment to public art funding during the Aug. 13 meeting.
“If we look at cutting that, even for one, two or three years, then we’ll have permanent buildings that are constructed without this beautiful artwork that we’re not going to go back and add to later,” Johnson said.
Tuttle, a member of the arts council board of directors, said removing the funding guarantee would fly in the face of the city’s cultural arts strategic plan , adopted in May, which calls for “expand[ing] and diversify[ing] public resources invested in cultural arts.”
“Even though public art doesn’t generate revenue, public art inspires other artists. It inspires young people, young talent, to want to stay in our community — hopefully to engage in the other arts industries that do generate revenue,” Tuttle said.
A 2022 arts and economic prosperity study found that Wichita’s nonprofit arts and culture sector generates $184.7 million annually and supports 2,929 full-time equivalent jobs.
Armando Minjarez, a local artist who chairs the design council, said figures like that shouldn’t be the only justification for supporting public art.
“I just hate to sort of dwell on the economic impact only,” Minjarez said. “I know that that’s what moves often public officials into action, but it’s more than that.”
Other factors are harder to quantify but vital for supporting the local arts community and creating a sense of community for all residents, he said.
“It’s made a huge difference already in the opportunities that are provided to local artists to participate in the public art program but also to feel like you can actually live and work in Wichita as an artist,” Minjarez said. “From an artist’s perspective, to be able to have an art ecosystem that is healthy and thriving means you stay. For the city, you’re able to retain talented people who care about the city so deeply that they want to create art within this community . . . Public art is more than just frivolous decoration on a building.”
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