Congratulations to WOW! Children’s Museum (World of Wonder). The Lafayette-based museum, which is a Community Foundation grantee, recently announced that they received $46,361 in grants from the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD).
Today, Nov. 3, 2015, is election day. Next year, Colorado voters will be choosing whether to continue the SCFD, a district-wide tax to fund the arts in the Denver metro area. The one-tenth of one percent sales tax is used to support arts and cultural institutions throughout the seven-county district, which stretches from Boulder County to Douglas County.
The number of Boulder County institutions receiving funds from the district is growing. The Community Foundation’s 2015-2016 TRENDS report shows that the number has increased from 55 groups in 2005 to 83 in 2013.
The voter-approved tax has been around since 1989, and is scheduled to sunset in 2018. Voters in November 2016 once again will have the chance to extend it, which a majority of them did in 1994 and again in 2004.
(While we’re on the topic of election day 2016, it will be a presidential election year so turnout should be high. City-Data.com provides this tidbit: Did you know that in 1996, just 52 percent of the county’s voters cast their ballots for President Bill Clinton? During the last presidential election in 2012, 70 of the voters voted for President Barack Obama.)
