After working for years with the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts (BOPA) and its predecessors, the City of Baltimore has terminated its contract with the independent agency.Baltimore’s Board of Estimates, the city’s spending panel, voted 5 to 0 on Wednesday to terminate the city’s agreement to work with and partially fund BOPA, despite pleas from two BOPA representatives to delay taking that action.According to a memo on the Board of Estimates agenda, the termination will take effect on January 20, 2025. The board’s action means that after that date, BOPA no longer has the city’s support to work as its arts council, film office and events producer, or to provide staff support for the city’s Public Art Commission. BOPA is still obligated to put on the New Year’s Eve fireworks show at the Inner Harbor and the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade in mid-January.The Board of Estimates took action after BOPA officials told the Mayor’s Office that the agency was running short of funds several months into the 2024-2025 fiscal year, and asked for additional money so it could keep operating and meet its payroll.Before that admission, BOPA had failed to put on a number of festivals and events that it was contractually obligated to produce, including the city’s Artscape festivals in 2020, 2021 and 2022; the Baltimore Book Festivals in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023; and Inner Harbor fireworks shows in 2020, 2021, and 2022. It also moved into newly-renovated offices at 7 St. Paul Street and hired an outside public relations agency to supplement its in-house communications manager. It commissioned consultants to survey artists and help develop a “strategic plan” to guide the agency’s work but then never released the strategic plan.When former CEO Donna Drew Sawyer declined to put on the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade in 2023, even though BOPA was obligated to do so, Mayor Brandon Scott called for her to resign, which she did. After Sawyer threatened to sue the city for sullying her reputation, BOPA agreed to give her a severance payment equal to half a year’s salary – $83,232 – for not taking legal action.Since Sawyer resigned in 2023, BOPA has had two interim CEOs, Brian Davis Lyles and Todd Yuhanick, and one permanent CEO, Rachel Graham, who left the Reginald F. Lewis Museum and officially started with BOPA in March. Others who resigned besides Sawyer include Jocquelyn Downs, former director of BOPA’s Arts Council; Chris Brooks, former Artscape director; and Brian Wentz, former Chief Financial Officer.Financial concernsBOPA has been working with the city since 2002, when Martin O’Malley was mayor. Its roots go back to an organization formed four decades ago by former Mayor William Donald Schaefer, the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on Art and Culture, headed by Jody Albright.The request to terminate the BOPA’s contract came from Scott, who serves on the Board of Estimates. Calvin Young III, senior advisor to Scott, said at the Board of Estimates meeting that BOPA’s current one-year contract with the city gives the Mayor’s Office the right to terminate the contract “for convenience,” after sending BOPA’s board advance written notice, and the mayor opted to do so.“The city of Baltimore has long valued the Baltimore Office of Performance and the Arts, BOPA, as a pivotal partner in fostering and engaging in a vibrant arts community,” Young said, mispronouncing BOPA’s name. “However, after careful consideration and thorough review, the city has decided on Oct. 16, 2024, to exercise its right to terminate the contract with BOPA.”The decision was “compelled by concerns regarding BOPA’s financial performance and subsequent ability to support the arts community on behalf of the city of Baltimore,” Young said. “Over time, it has been evident that BOPA’s handling of city-allocated funds has not met the standards of transparency and accountability required for this critical role.”Young said city officials are working on a transition plan that will help determine how BOPA’s work will be carried out after Jan. 20. He assured the Board of Estimates that the city’s goal is to continue supporting Baltimore’s artists and the arts community, but he didn’t provide much information about the transition plan.One possibility is that the city’s own agencies could absorb much of the work that BOPA does now. For example, some say, the city’s parks department could help put on festivals, the planning department could provide staff support for the Public Art Commission, and Visit Baltimore or the Baltimore Development Corp. could serve as the film office.Operators of the 32nd Street Farmers Market in Waverly have expressed interest in running the Baltimore Farmers Market that BOPA operates on Sundays at Saratoga and Holliday streets. Graham has said she believes BOPA ought to continue serving as the city’s Arts Council even if its contract with the city ends, but that would require consent from both the Mayor’s Office and the Maryland State Arts Council. The Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance is another candidate to serve as the city’s arts council.“As we navigate the transition of services, our primary focus is to minimize disruption to employees and, crucially, lessen the impact on artists and creatives who depend on grant funding,” Young said. “We are committed to ensuring these vital community members receive the support they need during this period. In the coming months, we will collaborate with our fiscal agency, the Baltimore Civic Fund, to distribute $500,000 in artist relief funding to individual artists. Additionally, we have already initiated the critical work of our transition team with BOPA’s team to ensure a smooth process over the next 90 days.”While this transition represents a significant change, “it is also an opportunity to establish a more functional cultural network,” he said. “We are dedicated to a transparent transition and to opening opportunities for new partnerships to embrace and elevate the community’s needs and the city’s rich cultural environment. The city thanks BOPA for its years of continued service and contributions to the arts scene, and we are excited to foster a sustainable and inclusive cultural ecosystem” in the future.Turning the TitanicAfter Young spoke, the Board of Estimates heard testimony from two speakers, interim board treasurer Angela Wells-Sims, and Graham, BOPA’s CEO. Both asked the board to give BOPA time past Jan. 20 to work with the city and the arts community.Wells-Sims said BOPA’s interim board was formed only seven months ago and the agency has had three CEOs within six years, “which is very challenging in itself.” She blamed media reports for spreading inaccurate information about its finances.“I strongly recommend that the timeline on cancelling the contract be extended,” in part “so that agencies across the city can come together and come up with a cohesive plan that benefits economically the city,” she said.Graham said she was disappointed that the mayor wanted to terminate the contract so soon after she joined the staff. She compared trying to solve BOPA’s financial problems in seven months to “taking a hard right turn with the Titanic.”  For lack of a better way to put it, “it’s really not fair to not give this body and this president and this staff the actual time to right the ship,” she said.Andrew Chaveas, interim chair of BOPA’s board, did not speak at the meeting.