Leaders of the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis asserted Thursday that it has been a good steward of taxpayer dollars and dismissed recent allegations of financial mismanagement, calling them part of a politically motivated campaign to discredit arts funding.
“We know various lobbyists and consultants have been engaged to take us out. This is not accidental. It is targeted and strategic,” said Tino Ochoa, chair of RAC’s board of commissioners, in a public Zoom meeting. “It’s an effort to challenge whether public funding for the arts should even exist, and who should control it.”
Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick announced earlier this month that he is launching a review of RAC’s finances, citing the results of an initial investigation prompted by a whistleblower Fitzpatrick said had complained about alleged misuse of funds.
Fitzpatrick cited potential issues, including RAC’s spending on travel, employee bonuses and the percentage of overall funding it spends on administrative expenses.
“We have verified the veracity of the whistleblower complaints and have seen with our own eyes at this point records that give us enough concern that we want to proceed with an audit,” Fitzpatrick said on March 3.
RAC has provided thousands of pages worth of financial records to outside parties in response to a series of Sunshine Law requests dating to July 2024, Ochoa said.
A representative of the Holy Joe Society — an advocacy group that mounts legal challenges to what it deems “improper activities of Missouri local government,” often pertaining to spending — acknowledged this week it had sought and received financial information from RAC through Sunshine Law requests.
“We are delighted to see the Auditor in action!” said W. Bevis Schock, a St. Louis attorney who sits on the Holy Joe Society’s board of directors.
Changes to grant process
RAC distributes annual grants to arts organizations in St. Louis and St. Louis County. It is funded by a tax on hotel and motel stays. The commission distributed $3.7 million last year.
The organization suspended grant applications for fiscal 2026 due to “continuing financial volatility” and a new five-year plan, according to a note on its website. It will use applications received in 2025 as a guide for its 2026 grants.
“This pause allows RAC to support eligible and high-scoring 2025 grantees and applicants while navigating financial challenges and planning for a stronger, more sustainable grant program in the future,” the note says.
RAC will host a public meeting for grant applicants in July, Cooksey said, to discuss plans for 2027 through 2030.
Following the money
RAC leaders addressed some issues raised by Fitzpatrick and in recent news reports published by the St. Louis Business Journal and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Fitzpatrick raised a red flag at RAC’s practice of offering bonuses to employees for good performance.
“We have findings related to bonuses that anytime there’s a governmental entity in Missouri, if they pay their employees bonuses, it is unconstitutional,” Fitzpatrick said in an interview the day he announced his audit of RAC.
RAC Executive Director Vanessa Cooksey challenged that legal interpretation.
“The Missouri Constitution does not prohibit fairly and properly compensating staff for the work they perform,” she said Thursday. “We believe the payments to staff that we’ve seen reported in the press were reasonable compensation to our team members who earned them for their exceptional work that they performed.”
Based on the relevant legal language, the dispute could come down to whether the bonuses were conferred after the fact or as part of an existing payment structure.
The bonuses that were awarded total about $45,000 across two years, Cooksey said, describing the amount as less than one-third of 1% of RAC’s revenue over that time.
Cooksey also said isolated line items from RAC’s recent budgets have been taken out of context and mischaracterized as wasteful spending.
She referenced a staff trip to Puerto Rico, explaining it as an appropriate visit to the annual conference convened by the national organization Grantmakers in the Arts. The 2026 conference is scheduled for Memphis, Tennessee.
“This was not a luxury trip. We send staff to this conference every year to stay current on best practices that can improve our grants and programs and to build relationships with peer organizations and national philanthropic partners. That’s standard practice for organizations like ours across the country,” Cooksey said.
Questions from Zoom attendees on Thursday were submitted through an online portal and relayed to Ochoa and Cooksey by an off-screen assistant, who did not verbally acknowledge a question about whether recent allegations revealed any legitimate missteps and if RAC would benefit from tighter oversight.