Fulton County commissioners reject $1.7 million amendment to restore arts contracts for services

Fulton County Board of Commissioners on Feb. 5 declined a request to amend the county’s fiscal year 2025 budget to restore $1,700,000 to the Department of Arts and Culture’s Contracts for Services program, a measure its sponsors said was needed to maintain funding at prior-year levels. The motion, sponsored by Commissioner Dana Barrett and Commissioner Marvin Arrington, failed 2–3.

The decision followed about an hour of public comment in which more than two dozen arts leaders, nonprofit directors and artists urged the board to reinstate the funds. Speakers representing institutions and programs across Fulton County described the Contracts for Services (CFS) dollars as critical to operations, youth programming and local economic activity.

“You are the model county,” Wadudah Mohammed, executive director of Georgians for the Arts, told commissioners, noting statewide arts funding pressures. Christopher Escobar, owner of the Plaza and Tara movie theaters and executive director of the Atlanta Film Society, submitted a study showing what he called substantial tax revenues generated by arts activity and urged commissioners to “think about not just the dollars out, but think about the dollars in.” Chris Moses, artistic director of the Alliance Theatre, said research shows arts participation increases tolerance and hope among youth.

Commissioner Barrett, who introduced the resolution, said many arts organizations lack financial reserves and cannot plan on a “maybe” midyear funding decision. Barrett told colleagues applications for CFS were due Jan. 17 and that allocations would begin in early March; she said delaying allocation decisions could force organizations to cut staff or programs. The resolution would have increased the arts budget by $1.7 million, an amount Barrett said is “less than 0.2% of our total general fund expenditure budget.”

Opponents framed the vote in the context of other county priorities. Commissioner Moe Ivory, who questioned acting on the amendment immediately, pointed to a recently announced Department of Justice consent decree related to conditions at the Fulton County jail and said the county needs to quantify and prioritize those fiscal obligations before committing additional discretionary funds now. Commissioner Khadijah Abdul Rahman asked for patience and said a “no” today did not preclude future funding.

The motion failed with a 2–3 tally. The transcript records only the vote count; it does not give a roll-call attribution for each vote. The resolution text would have amended the approved FY25 budget to add $1,700,000 to the Department of Arts and Culture for the Contracts for Services program and was sponsored by Commissioners Barrett and Arrington.

Public commenters urged the board to reconsider midyear if immediate restoration was not possible, and several commissioners asked staff to accelerate midyear funding processes if additional revenue becomes available. The board did not adopt the amendment at the meeting; commissioners said they will continue budget discussions and monitoring of the consent decree-related estimates.

A broad cross-section of arts organizations spoke at the meeting, including the Alliance Theatre, the Woodruff Arts Center, the Atlanta Film Society, Synchronicity Theatre, Balethnic Dance Company, Hammers House Museum, the Atlanta Shakespeare Company and smaller organizations and individual artists who said CFS funds represent a substantial share of their operating budgets. Several speakers supplied economic and public-health claims supported in their testimony (for example, local tax revenue generation and youth mental-health benefits associated with sustained arts programming).