CLEARWATER, Fla. (WFLA) — The Pinellas County Board of Commissioners voted on Thursday to discontinue funding for Creative Pinellas, an organization funding local artists.

Commissioners questioned how the organization was using its funds to enhance tourism with the money it gets from the Tourist Development Tax funding.

In true artist fashion, members of the arts community made statements, like a woman wearing tape over her mouth with the words “‘visitors don’t vote” on it. The Pinellas County commission weighed whether Creative Pinellas contributes to tourism as they reviewed the Fiscal Year 2026 budget.

“If we are not funded in the budget, our county lease requires that we vacate our offices and galleries by the end of (the) fiscal year in the weeks,” said Creative Pinellas CEO Margaret Murray.

Their organization awards local artists with grants. Many of them described how those grants helped launch their careers, design the very murals seen around Pinellas County, and contribute to the culture of the county. Creative Pinellas goes into the school systems, gives scholarships to students for summer camps, and more.

“Creative Pinellas has really changed my family’s lives,” said one local artist who received a grant from Creative Pinellas.

But commissioners questioned how the organization supports tourism.

“I don’t know if they would support artists directly. We had people come up here and say the grants changed their lives but that’s not tourism,” said Commission Chair Brian Scott.

There is a recommendation to redirect funding to an arts grant program with Visit St. Pete Clearwater with an increase in funding to $500,000 in arts and cultural grant tourism programs.

“Respectfully, Visit St. Pete Clearwater does not understand best practices for curating funding or administrative arts programming,” said another local artist. “What Creative Pinellas is doing directly, and indirectly, is building and sustaining a thriving art culture. It’s not one-off projects, it’s not tourist art, it’s a community and a culture.”

Commissioner Chris Latvala said Visit St. Pete Clearwater does a “pretty good job” of advising the commission on which museums to give millions of dollars in bed taxes to every year.

“This is tough to some, but at the end of the day, this is not life or death. Art in schools will still be there; the sun will still shine. People will still come and go to art galleries and museums. We will still thrive as a county,” Latvala said.

Creative Pinellas said they already work with Visit St. Pete Clearwater and have tourism programs in place. One artist who spoke at the meeting shared how she is one of two artists with murals at St. Pete Clearwater International Airport and was part of a Creative Pinellas program that put artwork inside hotels.

The CEO asked commissioners for one more year of funding to have conversations and implement changes.

“Please let us address your concerns. Being blindsided like this gave us very little opportunity,” Murray said. “I believe we deserve a chance to work together.”

Some commissioners agreed this process needed more vetting.

Commissioner Dave Eggers mentioned how it seemed like a knee-jerk reaction to DOGE coming in and telling commissioners “how to run our lives down here, but this is our community.”

The final vote on the budget will come after the public hearing on Sept. 18. It’s unclear if any amendments can be made to this portion of the budget.