The town of Brunswick can hardly be blamed for going to bat for public art.

Because the town is a tax-exempt entity and the Brunswick Public Art Group is not, the town agreed this week to collect and hold money to pay for an art installation at Brunswick Station. A well-intentioned move. But one the town may end up regretting.

We’re not against public art. And we think there should surely be a mechanism for the town to accept donations to fund items of public benefit, whether it be school supplies or sculptures.

The town says it can accept and hold funds for Brunswick Public Arts Group as long as the funds are spent on a public use. But the town has more skin in the game than that. It also is providing in-kind services to this group by acting as a passthrough. Those services have a value — however small — paid for in tax dollars. So by spending time and picking groups it will work with, here we have a bit of a public investment into a private organization.

That’s not unheard of. Tax breaks are given all the time these days to private developers to complete projects that create jobs.

The real problem is selecting which groups to help.

This decision making could run the gamut from the obscene to the absurd: A vigilante group wants to help the town pay for private patrols. Kids want to funnel proceeds from lemonade stands for textbooks. It could go on and on, and the guidelines for selection seem vague, if they exist at all.

Is the town still able to reject a request to disburse charitable funds and not be liable? On what basis?

There were work-arounds to funding a sculpture at Brunswick Station.

The Brunswick Public Art Group could have simply told donors their contributions would not be tax-deductible. They could have aligned their project with a nonmunicipal entity such as the Brunswick Downtown Association. Or they could have gone through the process of becoming tax-exempt like every other nonprofit entity.

Now that the town has set itself up as a conduit for charitable funding, step right up and make your request. We don’t see how you can be refused.