The city of Aurora has agreed to give additional funding to the organization that runs the Paramount Theatre, although less than previously discussed, which is a change from a past budget proposal.
The Aurora Civic Center Authority — which owns the Paramount Theatre, the Copley Theatre, Paramount School of the Arts and North Island Center plus manages the city-owned RiverEdge Park and Stolp Island Theatre — regularly receives money from the city both though its contract to run RiverEdge Park and through a head tax paid by the Hollywood Casino in Aurora. Those payments were already included in the city’s proposed 2026 budget.
Over the past few years, the city of Aurora had also given the Civic Center Authority some of its federal pandemic-era relief funds, money that is no longer available. Under former Mayor Richard Irvin, Aurora told the Civic Center Authority it would still get an additional $7 million next year to help close a gap the organization had in its budget.
Earlier this year, theatre officials were told they would be getting less than that amount, which caused them to cut the BOLD Series of shows at the Copley Theatre, lay off staff and threaten further cuts.
Aurora officials said during the city’s 2026 budgeting process that its financial situation was one of the most serious it had ever faced. As formally proposed in mid-October, Aurora’s 2026 budget includes significant funding and staffing cuts to city departments.
That proposed 2026 city budget doesn’t just have a reduction in the previously-discussed funding for the Paramount. It includes none of those funds at all, which surprised theater officials.
But on Friday, a joint statement from the city of Aurora and the Civic Center Authority said that an agreement had been reached for the city to support the organization with a “one-time off-ramp” payment of $2 million. This payment, the statement said, will ensure the organization can continue running its live performance spaces throughout downtown as well as the Paramount School of the Arts.
“This agreement reflects true partnership and collaboration,” Aurora Mayor John Laesch said in the statement. “The city’s 2026 budget presents significant challenges. I appreciate the efforts of Paramount Theatre leadership as they worked to streamline their budget, just as all city departments did during our budgeting process.”
The city of Aurora is still working through its budgeting process for 2026, and any final version of the budget would still need to be approved by the Aurora City Council.
The funds are expected to come mostly from new revenue the city is expecting to bring in after the Hollywood Casino’s new location, which is currently under construction, opens next year, Laesch told The Beacon-News. Some of the funding may also come from other places the city is looking to free up money, but the city isn’t looking to make any more budget cuts at this point, he said.
When asked why the city has now decided to financially support the Civic Center Authority next year after not including it in the proposed 2026 budget, Laesch said that discussions had been going on.
“The question, of course, has been, ‘How are we going to do it?'” he said.
The first step was getting the city’s budget figured out, according to Laesch. Now, the city is making a number of “tough choices” in the final stretch of the budgeting process, he said, which has involved doing projections on the revenue the new casino location will bring in, as well as what the city could do to support the Civic Center Authority.
While there’s been “heightened concerns” and “public alarm,” it has just taken some time to move through priorities on a city level and to get to this point, Laesch said. The city is looking forward to working with the Authority’s leadership, he said, to make sure that the Paramount Theatre and downtown businesses thrive.
The city of Aurora and the Paramount Theatre have always been strong partners, Aurora Civic Center Authority President and CEO Tim Rater said in the joint statement.
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“For years, we have built on each other’s successes, helping to revitalize the downtown area,” he said in the statement. “We truly appreciate the mayor and his team working alongside us to find this support, and we look forward to working together to continue to evolve this amazing city.”
Rater told The Beacon-News that the $2 million the city has now agreed to give his organization in 2026 is “critical” to next year’s programming. In particular, it has made sure the Civic Center Authority can do programming next summer at RiverEdge Park, he said, which was in question before the city pledged the additional support.
The organization was also looking at reducing programming at Stolp Island Theatre and at cuts to the Paramount School of the Arts before the recent agreement with the city, according to Rater.
The joint statement from the city and the Civic Center Authority called this payment a “one-time off-ramp,” but the Authority previously asked the city for a multi-year off-ramp. In a letter dated Sept. 2, Authority officials proposed the city give the organization $5.6 million in 2026 to cover its budget deficit and then reduce that support by 10% in 2027, again by 10% in 2028 and a third time by 10% in 2029.
“This phased approach will allow us to adapt thoughtfully, pursue new revenue opportunities, and, more importantly, protect the core community-focused mission and award-winning programming that have proven so valuable to our community and the city at large,” the letter said.
When asked what a one-year rather than a multi-year off-ramp would look like for his organization, Rater told The Beacon-News he wasn’t sure. One of his concerns is the long-term fiscal stability of the Paramount Theatre, he said, so “we’re just going to have to keep talking with the city about what the following year looks like.”
Rater has previously said that, through monthly meetings with Aurora officials, he came to understand that the city’s 2026 budget would include $2.5 million in support of the Civic Center Authority. He called that number a “worst case scenario,” but he said the Authority has been making cuts to meet the city there.
The $2.5 million in funding is also what Laesch previously told The Beacon-News could be in the 2026 city budget for the Civic Center Authority, although he said it could be lower further along in the budgeting process.
After further cuts, the Authority had a $3.3 million deficit in its 2026 budget, Rater said in late October. He told The Beacon-News on Friday that his organization is looking at running with a slight deficit in its 2026 budget, like the city is also planning to do.
The $2 million the city has now agreed to give the Authority in 2026 is “a tremendous amount of money,” Rater said, and represents about a third of what the organization plans to bring in as donations next year. Contributed funds make up about 20% of the organization’s total budget, with the rest coming from earned revenue, he said.
A recent study showed that the Civic Center Authority has the ability to raise $25 million over the next five years, according to the organization’s September letter to the city. But theater officials also said in the letter that “reliable city support will be essential to creating the confidence and conditions needed for a successful campaign and to ensure that these ambitious goals can be realized.”
The Aurora Civic Center Authority, as it looks to the future, is looking to reevaluate the prices of “everything” — tickets, concessions, merchandise, classes, weddings and venues — with some of those changes having already gone into effect, Rater previously said.
Laesch has long spoken about the Aurora Civic Center Authority needing to find a way to become financially stable, including during his time as an alderman at-large on the Aurora City Council. As mayor, he’s also made suggestions about ways he thinks that could happen, such as like adjusting the discount on yearly Broadway Series subscriptions.
The city’s previous administration had a three-part plan to make the Aurora Civic Center Authority financial sustainable, but Laesch hit the brakes on a piece of that plan, a proposed 4,000-seat theater and event space called the City of Lights Center, almost immediately after being elected in April. He told The Beacon-News at the time that nobody had made a compelling argument to him, and that he hadn’t seen any concrete plans saying it was going to be a success.
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