Georgia O'Keefe Museum v. County
| Decision Date | 02 October 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 22,202.,22,202. |
| Citation | 2003 NMCA 3,133 N.M. 297,62 P.3d 754 |
| Parties | GEORGIA O'KEEFFE MUSEUM, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. COUNTY OF SANTA FE, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of New Mexico |
MacDonnell Gordon, Rodey, Dickason, Sloan, Akin & Robb, P.A., Kurt A. Sommer, Sommer, Fox, Udall, Othmer & Hardwick, P.A., Santa Fe, NM, for Appellant.
Christopher L. Graeser, Deputy County Attorney, Santa Fe, NM, for Appellees.
{1} The opinion filed in this case on September 30, 2002, is withdrawn and the following opinion is substituted therefor.
{2} The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, a private corporation (O'Keeffe), protested the assessment of property tax by the County of Santa Fe (the County), claiming an exemption for its museum property under New Mexico Constitution Article VIII, Section 3. The County Valuation Protests Board (the Board) upheld the assessment on the ground that O'Keeffe "failed to produce sufficient competent evidence" that "a substantial use, and the primary use, of the ... property is charitable or educational." O'Keeffe appealed the denial, paid the assessment under protest, and filed a complaint for refund of the taxes it paid. After consolidation of the refund action with the appeal, the district court affirmed the Board on the exemption denial and dismissed the refund action upon the County's motion for summary judgment. We reverse and remand for further proceedings on the exemption issue. We affirm the dismissal of the refund action.
{3} O'Keeffe is a New Mexico non-profit corporation and a tax exempt organization under the Internal Revenue Code, 26 U.S.C. § 501(c)(3). One of O'Keeffe's stated purposes is to "maintain property, including a building and museum collections, for the operation of a museum devoted primarily to the exhibition of the works of Georgia O'Keeffe." Another is to "promote and encourage public awareness of, interest in and appreciation of its collections and ... engage in such educational programs as are consistent with the operation of a museum." O'Keeffe's museum is situated on Johnson Street in Santa Fe, New Mexico (the museum property). O'Keeffe has allocated about sixty percent of its annual budget for what it deems educational purposes.
{4} O'Keeffe applied for an exemption from taxation of the museum property for the year 1999 under the "educational or charitable purposes" exemption contained in Article VIII, Section 3 of the New Mexico Constitution, which reads in pertinent part:
The property of the United States, the state and all counties, towns, cities and school districts and other municipal corporations, public libraries, community ditches and all laterals thereof, all church property not used for commercial purposes, all property used for educational or charitable purposes, all cemeteries not used or held for private or corporate profit and all bonds of the state of New Mexico, and of the counties, municipalities and districts thereof shall be exempt from taxation.
The County Assessor denied the exemption application and O'Keeffe filed a protest with the Board. After a hearing, the Board entered a Decision and Order upholding the Assessor's denial of the exemptions for educational and charitable use.
{5} O'Keeffe's director of education testified regarding its programs and activities, several of which are also illustrated in documents. We summarize this evidence which relates to the operation of the museum only during the period 1997 to 1999.
{6} On-Site: The museum opened in 1997 and is open six days per week. O'Keeffe collects, houses, and publically displays artworks by Georgia O'Keeffe, and operates a retail gift shop. Over 665,000 persons visited the museum in the two years following its opening, the majority of whom paid an entrance fee.
{7} In the museum, visitors receive a brochure that discusses significant events in Georgia O'Keeffe's life. Orientation tours for the general public are available thirty hours a week. Educational tours for school children are regularly conducted on Mondays when the museum is closed to the public. Student tours are given to about three thousand students each year. Less regularly, lectures are held, students from an elementary school visit the museum (three times per year) in conjunction with a primarily off-site art education program, tours are given for persons with disabilities, and teacher workshops are held for Santa Fe area teachers. O'Keeffe funds visits by students and teachers as exhibitions change at the museum.
{8} O'Keeffe also provides pre- and post-museum visit educational material to give students "a richer and deeper experience." Further, O'Keeffe provides "hands on lessons in the galleries with teachers and students," and conducts a Saturday family program (once a month during the school year and twice a month during the summer) to encourage children to become lifelong museum visitors. The family program begins at the museum, teaching the children to develop critical thinking skills and to articulate what they have experienced, and continues at another location for practical lessons.
{9} Off-Site: O'Keeffe conducts or participates in a substantial number of educational programs and activities that occur away from the museum property. For example, O'Keeffe, as part of its professional development program in art education: produces teacher lesson plans; conducts workshops and teaching programs for instructors in art education; offers professional development and art leadership experience programs for girls and young women; works with a city summer therapeutic recreation program for kids with disabilities; and conducts or is involved in various other educational and mentor programs. O'Keeffe also has office space on Grant Avenue in Santa Fe, where it often conducts educational programs.
{10} Through several of its programs and activities, O'Keeffe reaches out to local communities around the state, conducting courses and workshops in conjunction with universities and schools. O'Keeffe also sponsors lectures; operates senior citizen programs; donates materials and supplies to schools, teachers, and libraries; and carries on a year-round university intern program, as well as a docent program that trains adults. For its plentiful programs and activities, O'Keeffe produces several types of resource materials and supplies for study in conjunction with artwork at the museum, for career development in the arts (e.g., art conservation, art criticism, art education, art therapy), for instruction on how museums operate to use Georgia O'Keeffe's life as an educational tool (e.g., as part of New Mexico history), and for use in art education generally.
{11} Further, O'Keeffe has a resource library containing books about Georgia O'Keeffe and other contemporary artists, and donates books to repositories such as college and public libraries. In addition, O'Keeffe donates seventy-five percent of its one-day pass revenue to the Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of New Mexico, and eighty percent of its four-day pass revenue to the Museum of New Mexico. Both of these museums are state owned and operated.
{12} Both parties rely on NRA Special Contribution Fund v. Bd. of County Comm'rs, 92 N.M. 541, 591 P.2d 672 (Ct.App. 1978), for the standard for determining whether the museum property is used for educational purposes:
[W]e hold the phrase "used for educational purposes" to mean "the direct, immediate, primary and substantial use of property that embraces systematic instruction in any and all branches of learning from which a substantial public benefit is derived."
Id. at 548, 591 P.2d at 679. "[I]t is the direct and immediate use of the property ... and not the remote and consequential benefit derived from its use" that governs. Id. at 546, 591 P.2d at 677. "Substantial public benefit" means "[a] benefit of real worth and importance to an indefinite class of persons who are a part of the public, which benefit comes to these persons from the use of property." Id. at 549, 591 P.2d at 680.
{13} O'Keeffe asks this Court to apply the NRA standard broadly, eschewing requirements of a regular, structured, and active, on-site direct teaching and learning environment. The County asks this Court to adhere to the narrowly tailored results reached by the Board and the district court from measuring the evidence strictly against the language of the NRA standard, to reject any off-site activity and any notion of inherent educational value.
{14} The trial court in NRA granted the Special Contribution Fund (the Fund) an educational-purposes exemption. The Fund was a non-profit trust that qualified for a § 501(c)(3) exemption. Its property was used for the following:
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State v. Druktenis
...1999-NMCA-152, ? 24, 128 N.M. 345, 992 P.2d 896; see also Georgia O'Keefe Museum v. County of Santa Fe, 2003-NMCA-003, ? 27, 133 N.M. 297, 62 P.3d 754 ("We interpret the Constitution and determine whether the law was properly applied to the facts through de novo review."); cf. State v. Herb......
-
State v. Druktenis, 2004 NMCA 032 (N.M. App. 1/30/2004)
...1999-NMCA-152, ¶ 24, 128 N.M. 345, 992 P.2d 896; see also Georgia O'Keefe Museum v. County of Santa Fe, 2003-NMCA-003, ¶ 27, 133 N.M. 297, 62 P.3d 754 ("We interpret the Constitution and determine whether the law was properly applied to the facts through de novo review."); cf. State v. Herb......
-
Law v. New Mex. Human Servs. Dep't
...decision appealed to the district court is by writ of certiorari. Georgia O’Keefe Museum v. Cty. of Santa Fe , 2003-NMCA-003, ¶ 25, 133 N.M. 297, 62 P.3d 754 ; see Rule 12-505(A)(1) NMRA (stating that the Court of Appeals reviews district court decisions that address administrative proceedi......
-
Cavu Co. v. Martinez
...is that “[p]roperty is presumed to be subject to taxation.” Georgia O'Keeffe Museum v. Cnty. of Santa Fe, 2003–NMCA–003, ¶ 32, 133 N.M. 297, 62 P.3d 754; see also3.6.7.16(A) NMAC (“Real property owned by a nongovernmental entity is presumed to be subject to taxation under ... the Property T......
-
A Will for Willa Cather.
...(25.) Most of the artwork-limitations jurisprudence arises out of charitable gifts. See, e.g., Georgia O'Keefe Museum v. Cty. of Santa Fe, 62 P.3d 754, 768 (N.M. 2002) (considering donations "restricted to educational, exhibition and acquisition purposes"). Restricted charitable gifts must ......