reprinted from:

Although Teng's possible new tax would benefit all the city's 63,000 students in kindergarten through high school, it would be paid by a lot of suburbanites and tourists, who flock to the city for all kinds of cultural attractions. She said she wants to raise about $5 million annually.

As an alternative to the tax, Teng suggested, the city could charge a special fee to developers who want to build entertainment complexes.

The San Francisco school board eliminated the elementary school arts program last year so the district could balance its budget. Last week, Mayor Willie Brown proposed that the Board of Supervisors appropriate $657,000 to help fund art supplies and field trips in elementary schools this year.

On top of that, the city's general fund provides $600,000 more to music programs and $1 million for after-school sports, said City Controller Ed Harrington.

Teng said she did not know how much the city would have to tack on to movie tickets and the like to pay for the schools' arts programs. Any proposed tax would have to be approved by two-thirds of the city's voters, she said.

"It is shameful that in a city with a rich artistic and cultural heritage, we can't give our own children an artistic education in the public schools," Teng said at yesterday's board meeting.

"The mayor's gift only restored a small part of the art program that was slashed last year," she said. San Francisco schools cut $20 million from all programs last year, including an extra period for middle school students.

Teng's proposal immediately brought objections from Supervisor Leland Yee, a former Board of Education member. He questioned whether it is proper for the city to provide such regular funding to the schools, which are an independent agency financed mainly by the state and local property taxes, and he wondered aloud where such a practice would stop.

"There is a fire wall separating the schools and the City and County of San Francisco," Yee said. "I appreciate the concerns of many over the financial situation of the schools, but for us to look at funding school programs opens a Pandora's box."

Yee, who chairs the supervisors' Finance Committee, called for a hearing into the schools' fiscal situation.

Theater and movie executives reacted cautiously last night to Teng's proposal, but one was quick to question the supervisor's thinking.

Jonathan Reinis, who owns Theater on the Square and also is a producer, said Teng should concentrate on other industries instead of the theater business, which has a dwindling number of for-profit theaters.

"You have the strongest economy in decades, and you're looking for the arts to support the school system? What a ridiculous idea," Reinis said.

A ticket tax, Reinis said, would inflate already-high ticket prices and be "a further deterrent to the performing arts."

Reinis' view was shared by Anthony Argandona, who works at Video Control in the Castro area and rents videos for $3.25 apiece. He said that forcing video stores to increase prices would hurt mom-and-pop outfits.

"She's crazy," Argandona said of Teng. "It's expensive enough as it is. A lot of small businesses would have to close."

At the Metreon, many people waiting in line were willing to pay an extra quarter or two if it meant exposing kids to the fine arts.

"It's a reasonable amount, and you'd generate a huge amount of money," Simon Trasler of San Francisco said as he paid $8.75 for a ticket to "The Thomas Crown Affair."

Teng said she is still collecting ideas on how to fund arts programs. "I am not necessarily committed to the surcharge," she said. "But I am committed to the arts in the schools."

She proposed an evening hearing October 19 before her Housing and Social Policy Committee to collect ideas on what to tax and how much to charge.

Teng is still gathering such basic data as how many movie or theater tickets are sold in the city. She said she has been working on her idea with the city and state PTA and a few school board members for about five months.

Carol Kocivar, special projects director for the state PTA, said, "The most important thing is that we find a source of revenue that schools can count on from year to year."

City Art Commission director Richard Newirth said he liked Teng's approach. "There is a logical connection between the profit-making side of the arts represented by the movie industry funding arts in the schools," he said.