Arts Access Fund Oversight Committee releases 2025 report

The Arts Access Fundwas developed to provide funding for elementary arts education in Portland schools and to help fund access to arts and cultural experiences for K-12 children and underserved communities. Portland voters created the fund by approving Measure 26-146 in 2012, which included the establishment of the Arts Access Fund Oversight Committee(AOC). The committee is charged with reviewing the expenditures, progress, and outcomes of the fund and reporting its findings to Portland's City Council annually, which it has done since 2013. 

Every year, the AOC publishes a report as part of their annual share out with City Council. These reports highlight the group's findings and recommendations, tax dollars and financial reporting, arts education reporting, and grants reporting. The AOC recently published its 2025 report.

Key report findings

Some of the reports findings include:

• The Arts Access Fund has a broad reach: 28,700 children have access to certified arts educators because of the fund.
• In partnership with the six school districts served by the fund, and PSU's Regional Research Institute, the Office of Arts & Culture developed an arts education framework to measure the conditions necessary to provide a high-quality arts education.
• The Arts Access Fund provided $3.3M in General Operating Support grants and $340K for arts organizations across the City.
• The Office of Arts & Culture collected a number of new equity-focused data points this year including the estimated number of lower-income Oregonians served by the grants and expanded profiles of the projects funded through small grants.

Recommendations

Among other recommendations, the 2025 report made these suggestions:

• City Council consider indexing the Arts Tax to an appropriate inflation indicator to retain the purchasing power of the funds at the level initially approved by voters.
• The Arts Education Program Manager partner with the committee to interpret and present pilot arts education framework data.
• Continued deepening of grant outcome data collection. The committee requests additional detail about which grant programs are directed toward underserved communities, as well as a view of Arts Access Funded activities by voting district.

Get the full report

ICYMI: $8.1M from the Arts Access Fund headed to Portland schools in 2025-26 ️

Related to the AOC's work, the City of Portland's Office of Arts & Culture recently announced that $8,127,508 will be distributed from the Arts Access Fund to Portland's six school districts and charter schools for the 2025-26 school year. Powered by the Arts Tax, schools will utilize these funds to pay elementary arts educators' salaries for the coming school year.

Read the announcement