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.
MILLION-DOLLAR DEFICIT: The tsunami unraveling.
Where did this deficit come from? Who was keeping the checkbook? Where is the report that explains how one of the country’s most active local economies suddenly ran out of money? Are we paying for short-sighted decisions made years ago?
Questions are piling up, and while the administration points fingers at the “federal context” — specifically, a $32 million state budget cut by Governor Ron DeSantis — the truth is, neighboring counties haven’t proposed measures nearly this drastic. In Miami-Dade, the shift goes from long-term support of legacy cultural organizations to leaving them out in the cold overnight. If this is a fiscal emergency, then where are the public audits? Where’s the real accountability?
CULTURE OR CLIENTELISM? Art as a political inconvenience.
In the middle of all this, you can’t help but wonder: Is the dissolution of the Department of Cultural Affairs also a political move? Culture challenges, it questions, organizes, and protests. Dissolving the department sends a crystal-clear message: independent and community-driven art doesn’t make money in Miami-Dade County, or fast votes. It’s easier to control the narrative from a “neutral” space — or an empty one. And in that silence, only the official voice echoes.
But the nonprofit cultural sector isn’t taking this quietly. Organizations that rely on public funding are not only exploring alternatives — they’re also willing to confront the county head-on to defend their role in the cultural ecosystem.
A VOICE FROM THE STAGE: The outcry of those still creating.
“This news is a bullet to the brain of culture… It’s already hard enough to keep the theater going… This isn’t just about the number of events — it’s about sustaining the infrastructure and the artistic ecosystem.”
This quote comes from a local artist and board member of one of the most vital small Hispanic theater organizations in the county — someone who’s been building culture with bare hands for years. Not a last-minute activist, but a voice from the trenches who knows what it takes to keep a center open, pay an actor, or pull off a full season without collapse.
And this warning is loud and clear: what’s at stake isn’t a grant or a one-off event — it’s an entire cultural fabric that was already worn thin and now faces institutional abandonment. If this is just the beginning, as he fears, “hard times are coming.” And it’s not just a financial issue: it’s structural, it’s existential, and it’s a well-aimed shot straight to the city’s cultural heart.
LIBRARIES, YES — BUT NOT LIKE THIS: The progressive mirage.
The plan to transfer funds to the public library system has been framed as a win for community literacy. And sure, no one here is against libraries — but using that narrative to justify dismantling the county’s cultural infrastructure is, at best, deceptive.
Libraries deserve support, but not at the expense of those who bring culture to life: artists, cultural managers, educators, theater companies, cultural centers, and community media. One shouldn’t erase the other. Culture can’t be treated as an electoral accessory or a disposable line item when the budget gets tight.
SILENCE HAS A BUDGET, TOO.
Gut the institutional support for culture, and you’re not just making budgetary choices — you’re making political ones. And political decisions come with consequences. In this case, the cost is our collective memory, our shared identity, our meeting spaces, and the growing normalization of cutting away what makes us human.
THINK. SHARE. ACT.
So now, in this post-cut landscape, it’s time to ask:
What’s next? What will nonprofit cultural organizations do now? How did we arrive at such a massive deficit without anyone being held responsible?
Go ahead — draw your conclusions.
BY | SNARKY SUE
COVER | Ai
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