Annarbor.com has an article that might invoke nerd rage if you’re studying the hard sciences. In my boss’ case the rage was more economic in nature. Either way, you have been warned.
The article begins “Ann Arbor officials are looking for ways to improve the city’s public art program and one of the first recommendations is to boost the public art administrator’s pay. Sue McCormick, the city’s public services administrator, recommended the $35,000 contract adjustment to council during a special work session Monday night.”
What the bleep? Seriously, Ann Arbor, I know it works at U of M, but throwing money into a giant furnace powering your pot greenhouses and co-op markets is not going to work here.
I’m being a bit unfair, so I want to make it clear. I approve of art. I do not approve of my inability to afford it, but that’s a personal issue.
Art is good. City support for art is good. What is not good is this kind of idea. For reference, it’s more or less the average wage of a full-time employed American. So for the price of a secretary, Ann Arbor can hire a better administrator, maybe.
To make things worse, the public arts program doesn’t seem very effective. The article mentioned despite four years of existence and $2.2 million in funding over time, the completed projects under the program amount to two sculptures, one in front of city hall and another in West Park. That money doesn’t come from the general funding of the city, so it has that going for it; however, it does siphon from infrastructure projects.
Still, if the program was more successful or had more actual staff and fewer volunteers the raise would make more sense. Of course, with that you run the risk of poisoning the program and making it just another city-run program and not the outreach of expression and civic pride it should be.
Granted, the program is only four years old and art can take time. But I don’t see that kind of raise being the ultimate solution it’s being proposed as. A more modest raise might get the results the city wants without the bigger bill. You could even debate the need for the program in the first place, but it doesn’t seem too big an issue right now.
Throwing more money at the problem probably won’t help. Yes, art is expensive, but the people involved in it should be so because they enjoy it and take pride in wanting to better their city, not just for a paycheck. The article mentioned the art committee members are asked to commit too much time. Getting more volunteers or full-time staff, say some in the $25-$35,000 range, might help ease the volunteer committee’s burden of work on smaller projects.
You can debate whether or not the public art program should even exist. I don’t really have a problem with it; the program is so Ann Arbor in its form it just feels like it belongs. You can also debate whether or not the program is doing any good, but one thing we shouldn’t have to debate is unreasonably high raises for a mostly volunteer program.
It’s not unreasonable to expect compensation, but hiring some staff to help the volunteers and providing a more modest raise to the administrator could use the money more wisely. That way the people involved stay involved for the right reasons, and the money doesn’t corrupt the program.
