Culture — that invisible seasoning that gives our cities flavor — is once again the first thing tossed to the bottom of the pot. But this time, the story isn’t told by a historian in a dusty book. A local administration narrates it with a nice smile and a very sharp budget-cutting knife.

On July 15, 2025, Daniella Levine Cava, mayor of Miami-Dade County, announced a series of cuts to address a deficit of over $400 million in next year’s fiscal budget. Among the proposals: slashing more than 50% of the funding for cultural programs, dissolving the Department of Cultural Affairs by merging it into the county’s library system, and redirecting its funds to the library system.
So, how exactly do you end up with a hole that deep? Is it just the result of federal budget cuts, or are we looking at a full-blown bureaucratic mess wearing a “fiscal adjustment” costume?
The numbers don’t add up. And neither do the priorities.

CULTURE IN A YARD SALE: When art gets in the way of Excel.

What is the Department of Cultural Affairs? It’s a public agency dedicated to strengthening the work of arts organizations and artists in Miami-Dade County through grants, and technical assistance to help promoting arts education; making cultural activities more equitable and accessible to all residents and visitors building and upgrading cultural facilities, operating arts centers, managing public art projects, and enhancing the visual quality of the county’s-built environment.

Now, the proposal to dissolve this department — accompanied by the firing of its director, Maria Laura Leslie — is not just some technocratic fix. It’s a symbolic declaration: culture is no longer essential. The department’s budget, which represents approximately 1% of the county’s total budget for Fiscal Year 2024–2025, has kept hundreds of cultural organizations, festivals, community projects — and, yes, jobs — alive. And now? What’s left will be “relocated” — a fancy word for “sent somewhere else, where artists aren’t on the guest list.”

Let’s be honest: this isn’t a fight between books and art. It’s about transparency in public management. It’s about asking why this county is facing such a massive financial sinkhole — and why the solution always seems to involve silencing cultural expression.