Friday, October 2, 2026
The City of Olympia Cultural Access Advisory Board (CAAB) is recommending nearly $4.85 million in Inspire Olympia funding after evaluating 94 applications from local arts, heritage, science and cultural organizations.
The recommendation, which will be reviewed by the Community Livability and Public Safety Committee at a meeting on Wednesday, May 27, would provide funding through two grant programs and continue support for cultural access programming in Olympia public schools.
The Inspire Olympia Cultural Access Program is funded through a voter-approved, one-tenth of 1 percent sales tax in effect from January 2023 through December 2029. The program supports nonprofit organizations whose missions focus on the arts, heritage, science and culture, and that provide public programming in Olympia.
For the 2026-27 funding cycle, the CAAB recommends allocating $2,402,090 to support 17 two-year Comprehensive Grant contracts and $2,057,243 for 68 one-year Impact Grant contracts. The board is also recommending $390,000 for the Cultural Access in Olympia Public Schools Program, bringing the total proposed allocation to approximately $4.85 million.
Inspire Olympia offers two funding pathways designed to reflect the varying size and capacity of applicant organizations. Impact Grants provide one-year contracts ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 for small, emerging and fiscally sponsored organizations. Comprehensive Grants provide up to $85.000 annually through two-year contracts for larger organizations.
In this year’s funding cycle, 94 organizations applied for grants, including 17 proposals for Comprehensive Grants and 77 proposals for Impact Grants.
Applications were reviewed by three panels composed of CAAB members and community volunteers. Two panels evaluated Impact Grant applications, while a third reviewed Comprehensive Grant proposals.
The CAAB later reviewed application scores. Board members considered the recommendations and established award amounts, while remaining within the available budget.
The funding recommendations also reflects a four-year spending plan adopted by the CAAB and approved by the Olympia City Council in 2025. The plan aims to increase grant opportunities, gradually spend down accumulated fund balances, and maintain a reserve equal to 10 percent to 20 percent of annual program obligations by 2029.
Annual Cultural Access Tax revenue for the July 2026 through June 2027 period is projected at $3.38 million. However, a staff report noted program expenditures are intentionally planned to exceed annual revenue through 2029 in order to distribute funds accumulated before the grant program launched.
The proposed $390,000 Cultural Access in Olympia Public Schools Program allocation would support classroom educational activities and field trips led by Inspire Olympia-funded organizations, while also reimbursing the Olympia School District for transportation costs associated with those programs.
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olyhiker
Do you suppose it would be feasible to put a moratorium on all these handouts and quit raising taxes?
Monday, May 25 Report this
mhjwilson
Drive around downtown and take a look at those on the streets. Then explain to me how we manage to have funds for cultural events when we have homeless people on the streets.
Monday, May 25 Report this
jimlazar
It is WE who raised the sales tax by 0.1% for this program. Nobody to blame but the voters of Olympia. And this tax applies ONLY in Olympia, so if you don't spend money here, you don't pay it.
This was on the ballot in April, 2022. 58% of the Olympia voters who voted approved it.
If you were among the 42% who voted no, well, that's how elections work.
If you were among the 66% who did not even vote at all, well, maybe you will remember to vote next time.
City of Olympia Proposition No. 1 Sales and Use Tax
Measure Vote Vote %
Yes 7,266 58.08%
No 5,244 41.92%
Total Votes 12,510
Number of Precincts 55
Number of Registered Voters 36,415
Total Ballots Counted 12,522
Estimated Ballots Left to Count
Next Ballot Count On FINAL
Last Tabulated 05/05/2022 4:30 PM
Voter Turnout 34.39%
Monday, May 25 Report this
Callie
This is not a handout - the organizations that get money have to PUT OUT, they have to do something for our community, look at Oly Arts for ideas of where you might go and thrive in a place that has a great variety of cool things to do and see.
And kids get an experience they might not get otherwise, that might keep a kid engaged in school. Which saves us all money in the long run.
Monday, May 25 Report this
RitaRose
So, what are some of the grants?
Tuesday, May 26 Report this
Southsoundguy
waste, fraud, and abuse
Tuesday, May 26 Report this
ViaLocal
care to elaborate on how this is waste, fraud or abuse southsoundguy? Be sure you back up all the waste, fraud and abuse done by the president in your explanation #grifterpedo
Tuesday, May 26 Report this
36098501
“Elections have consequences” is one of those elementary civics class slogans that sounds profound until you are deciding between rent, groceries, utilities, and yet another tax, fee, or “community investment” added to your monthly living costs.
What some commenters miss is that democracy is more than a simple majority. A 51% vote does not magically transform every tax, fee, or “community investment” into wise or moral policy. Good governance also requires restraint, stewardship, and honesty about who ultimately bears the cumulative burden of these decisions.
Olympia also has a structural political problem that rarely gets discussed. For years, City Council vacancies have often been filled by Council appointment rather than voter election. Those Council appointees then gain incumbency advantages, committee assignments, relationships with staff, endorsements, and fundraising networks before ever facing voters. That process significantly narrows political diversity and reinforces a governing culture that too often lacks functional expertise, private-sector or small-business experience but seems to rely heavily on requiring a Masters of Public Administration from Evergreen and a strong relationship with the DSA.
It doesn't help that our City Council members are elected "at large" and not directly responsible or accountable to a particular district within a diverse community with unique needs. It is time for that community discussion to begin.
The result is visible in policy outcomes. Olympia’s General Fund grew from roughly $85.5 million in 2020 to $122.1 million in 2026 — about 43% growth during a period when inflation was substantially lower. At the same time, residents continue facing new levies, utility taxes, permit costs, impact fees, and regulatory requirements.
Olympia even imposes a 9% utility tax on a basic living necessity. For a City that frequently emphasizes and prides itself with equity, taxing essential utilities while exempting other necessities like healthcare, prescriptions, food and rent raises a legitimate question about priorities. It is taxes and fees like this that impact those who can least afford it the most.
For retirees with paid-off homes, senior pensions, investment income, or upper-middle-class government salaries, another fraction of a percent here and another levy there is an abstraction. For renters, service workers, young families, and people already stretched thin by inflation, every added tax amplifies real hardship.
And this is where the “elections have consequences” argument becomes profoundly tone deaf. It reduces the lived reality of struggling residents to a lecture about accepting elite consensus. It treats dissent not as a warning sign that the City is becoming economically exclusionary, but as a moral failing by people insufficiently enlightened about “community values.”
Olympia’s old guard of committees, advisory boards, nonprofit insiders, and council regulars increasingly govern like a closed social club congratulating itself on compassion while pricing ordinary people out of participation in civic life itself. They champion grand visions of cultural vitality while many residents are wondering how to survive rising costs, shrinking public trust, and a City budget already under severe strain.
There is also an arrogance embedded in this worldview: the assumption that because something passed at the ballot box, criticism should end. But democracy is not a coronation. Policies can be legal, popular, and still shortsighted. Voters are not infallible, especially when costs are diffuse, long-term, or disproportionately carried by people with the least political power that can least afford the costs.
A city obsessed with curating its image as progressive, enlightened and culturally sophisticated can become blind to the basic dignity of affordability. “Livability” means little if the people who live and work in the community can no longer afford to live in it, be a part of it and contribute to it. And when leaders dismiss those concerns with a shrug and “well, elections matter,” they reveal exactly how detached they’ve become from the economic reality facing much of Olympia today.
Housing policy shows the same disconnect. Local officials often argue the 1% property tax cap is causing revenue shortfalls, yet revenues continue increasing. The 1% Cap is only on EXISTING properties. The 2%-4% growth of new construction gets added each year which is why property taxes are keeping up with inflation.
Ironically, the City simultaneously adds permitting complexity, impact fees, off-site improvement requirements and expensive building code requirements that make building more expensive and discourages future development with the mantra that “growths should pay for growth”. The City might manufacture its own revenue problem if construction growth decreases and property tax revenue is constrained by the 1% cap on growth. An average new home can easily carry $50k in permit and impact costs and another $50k in sales tax.
To see how long these dynamics have existed in Olympia, review the presentation linked below. The language is remarkable: “Get the money!”, “Influence the process”, “Infiltrate and influence the committee” and “Convinced to be silent.” Whether people agree with the campaign or not, it reflects a political culture that many residents increasingly view as insider-driven and dismissive of dissent. It is an uncomfortable truth that Olympia’s approach to governance can often be described as Machiavellian. This is only one example from long ago, but the approach continues to repeat today.
https://www.slideserve.com/neviah/olympia-s-parks-and-sidewalks-tax-leaving-butt-prints-in-the-sands-of-time
These are not isolated policies. They are cumulative. Viewed individually, each increase sounds modest. Together, they shape whether working families, retirees, renters, and younger residents can still afford to remain in Olympia.
The issue is not whether arts, science, heritage, and culture matter. They absolutely do. The question is whether Olympia’s governing priorities still reflect the economic realities facing ordinary residents.
A city can celebrate cultural vitality while simultaneously becoming unaffordable for the very people who keep it functioning. Affordability is not separate from community well-being; it is foundational to it.
Policies can be legal, popular, and still shortsighted in their long-term economic effects. Public criticism does not become invalid simply because self-proclaimed community experts proclaim that “the voters approved it.”
Tuesday, May 26 Report this
wolfmanner
Here we go with more DEI crap
Wednesday, May 27 Report this