A Matter of Trust

Take the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, whose latest financial woes
have been well documented. During the 2009-2010 season the SSO was
facing a large rent payment to the OnCenter in order to continue
performances at the Mulroy Civic Center. If the symphony couldn’t come
up with the funds, it would have had to severely cut back on its
performances elsewhere in the community. But thanks to a $75,000 grant
from the CRT, the symphony was able to pay the rent and keep playing.

While there are many places arts groups can go to apply for funding,
the emergence of a new source that’s specific to Onondaga County is
crucial. Both the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State
Council on the Arts have cut back their funding substantially over the
past few years. Additionally, the pool of corporate donations is drying
up as companies either move away from the area or slash budgets to deal
with the recession. The CRT hopes to help fill this void.

The CRT’s source of funds is tied to the bonding process for
non-profit institutions. For example, when Syracuse University wanted to
raise $165 million to build a green data center and make renovations,
SU went to the CRT as its conduit for placing the bonds. Underwriters,
such as banks, then sought out investors to buy the bonds. Since SU is a
non-profit, the CRT was able to provide tax-free sheltering for the
bonds, which leads to lower interest rates. 

As part of the deal the CRT collected a fee of approximately $700,000
from SU. This became the trust’s first pot of grant money for the arts.

The CRT is optimistic about future bonding prospects. Many
non-profits in Central New York—SU, Le Moyne College, area
hospitals—sell bonds to finance large capital projects. While there are
no current bond applications, neither the members of the CRT nor those
in the arts community seem too concerned about this. The belief is that
there will be plenty of demand for the CRT’s bonding authority down the
line and that the resulting fees will replenish the arts fund.

In addition to the grant to the SSO, the CRT partnered with the
Gifford Foundation and area arts groups by providing $20,000 for the
Community Engagement Project. This project is currently studying the
local cultural scene and surveying the area’s arts patrons to determine
who attends cultural events, and why. Once completed, it should give
arts organizations a better idea of how to build audiences.

Deputy County Executive William Fisher hopes the study will draw
attention to the role of the CRT and encourage non-profits to use the
CRT so as to keep bonding fees in the area for local use. “We hope that
some of the things the CRT has spent money on will bear fruit and
generate some notice among people making these {bonding} decisions,”
Fisher said.

Onondaga County already gives more than $1 million a year to arts and
cultural organizations, generated from the 5 percent room occupancy tax
on hotels and motels. For the CRT it is important to coordinate its
funding strategy with the County’s to maximize the value of the grants.
“We really are still trying to get {our} sea legs as far as providing
grants,” said Mary Beth Primo, the CRT’s executive director.

In its first year, the CRT has given out 10 grants ranging from the
$75,000 to the SSO to $500 for Baltimore Woods. The total given out so
far is just under $140,000. 

Syracuse Stage received $5,000 to support its season-opening production of No Child…
  “In these times, new funding sources are always welcome and really
appreciated,” said Jeff Woodward, Syracuse Stage’s managing director.
“So we’re very happy the county has figured out a way to allocate more
funds to the arts.”

With many local arts organizations facing serious financial
difficulties, there is a serious need for funds to support
infrastructure and core missions. “In the past, a lot of grants have
focused very much on projects,” said Steve Butler, executive director of
the Cultural Resources Council. “{Now} there is a real need to justify
general operating support, which is unrestricted funding, so that you
can perform your operations and keep staff in place to do the good
work—the programs—that you’re already doing.”

Show Me the Money

The CRT was legally chartered in 1992, but it was not needed as a
bonding conduit until 2009. For years, the Onondaga County Industrial
Development Agency was able to provide non-profit bonding. However, when
that contract expired in 2008, the state Legislature did nothing to
replace it. Suddenly there was a need for a new bonding entity that
could provide non-profits with funding for economic development.

As County Executive Joanie Mahoney prepared to take office in 2007,
Kate Clark, then the city’s public art coordinator and a member of
Mahoney’s transition team, brought the CRT to her attention. It is one
of only two such entities in the state, the other being New York City’s
Trust for Cultural Resources. The creation of a cultural trust in New
York City is what led to the formation of Onondaga County’s CRT. When
former Republican state Sen. Tarky Lombardi saw that New York City
received one from the state Legislature, he immediately pushed for one
in Onondaga County—and got it.

The stated mission of the trust is “to support, promote and protect
the cultural institutions that provide cultural, educational and
historical opportunities to the people of Onondaga County.”

 To activate it, 17 years later, all that was needed was to appoint a
board of trustees. The board was appointed in the fall of 2009. There
are five volunteer trustees: Chair Tom Dadey, Cydney Johnson, Gregory
Lancette, Matthew McAnaney and Ryan McMahon. Dadey was an unsuccessful
candidate for the state Senate and is now trying to become the chair of
the Onondaga County Republican Committee. He is an ally of Mahoney. 

As for the others, Johnson is an assistant professor in the School of
Business at Morrisville State College, Lancette works for the Plumbers
and Steamfitters Union as a business manager, McAnaney is employed by
Guardian life insurance company and, perhaps the best known of the
bunch, McMahon is a former Syracuse common councilor who sits on many
non-profit boards.

According to Fisher, Mahoney appointed these five based on their
history of community involvement and interest in promoting and
protecting the cultural fabric of Syracuse. Any action the CRT takes
requires a majority vote of the trustees.

While the CRT was set up by the county, it operates as a completely
separate, non-governmental entity and does not receive taxpayer money.
The CRT contracts with the county for the performance of day-to-day
administrative tasks.

While the CRT’s potential is great, a lack of new bonding projects
has put the trust in a holding pattern. The trust still has more than
$500,000, but it is not rushing to give it away until it has established
specific guidelines and application procedures. Given the needs in the
arts community, Primo knows this money could be given out in short
order. 

“We have to be careful now with what we have in our coffers because
we certainly don’t want to just willy-nilly give out grants and maybe
not have anything {left at all},” Primo said. Because of this, CRT
trustees in July placed a moratorium on taking new grant applications.
It will stay in effect until they are able to adopt guidelines for
grant-giving. 

“It gets into a philosophical debate,” Dadey said. “Do we want to
give a couple hundred dollars to every little festival that goes on in
this community or do we want to have a bigger impact and be involved in
larger projects of major cultural institutions like the MOST, the
symphony, the opera, the Everson Museum, those types of organizations?
Where can we have the greatest impact in the cultural community?”

In an attempt to resolve this debate, the board is measuring outcomes
of the first round of grants. Seeing which grants worked and which
grants didn’t will go a long way to shaping the CRT’s future.

For Fisher, the importance of the CRT comes down to a matter of
action over apathy. “Are we sitting around and letting the arts and
cultural sector wither on the vine or are we trying to bring some new
resources to bear?”

Anyone interested in applying for CRT funds needs to visit www.syracusecentral.com/business_resources/crt.htm.

Seth Sommerfeld majored in journalism and broadcasting at Gonzaga
University. A native of Montana, he is interested in music and popular
culture. He maintains his own music website: www.longlivethealbum.com.