Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Date: February 22, 2009
Byline: Stephan Salisbury

Pa. budget woes threaten cultural and historical sites

The Chester County Historical Society has already cut all salaries by 20 percent and reduced its days of operation to four a week.

Johnson House, a way station on the Underground Railroad and now a National Historic Landmark in the 6300 block of Germantown Avenue, is open only three days and has no executive director.

Nearly two dozen state-run historic sites in Pennsylvania, including the Daniel Boone Homestead in Berks County, Washington Crossing Historic Park in Bucks, and Lancaster's Ephrata Cloister, face closure.

State-designated heritage areas — the Lancaster-York Heritage Region, the Lackawanna Heritage Valley Authority — also are threatened.

Gov. Rendell's proposed 2010 budget reductions run deep across all state agencies, but they would cut already-wounded historical organizations and museums particularly harshly.

Except for a handful of large institutions — among them the Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the University of Pennsylvania Museum, and the African American Museum in Philadelphia — operating and program funding from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission has been eliminated.

State Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Phila.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, is to hold a hearing tomorrow in Harrisburg to begin examining the commission's budget. It's the first step in a months-long process during which some of the funding may be restored in traditional budget bargaining.

But the governor's stark 900-page proposal is the first public depiction of Pennsylvania's governmental priorities in this time of fiscal distress.

What does it show?

Small and medium-size institutions, which benefited from the commission's Museum Assistance Grants program, would get nothing.

County historical societies, which received state operating grants matched by their counties, also would get nothing.

The commission's operating, education and program funding for museums and heritage groups — about $4.9 million in a state budget of $61.7 billion — would be eliminated. And the commission's own operating budget would be reduced from $25.8 million to $24 million.

Operations already are so pared down that the reduction — which would mean eliminating nearly 50 full-time jobs — would leave the commission unable to staff all 23 sites it runs.

"We're looking to close down some sites" — it's not yet clear which ones — "and we're trying to find what is a sustainable level of operations," commission director Barbara Franco said last week. "It's a reality we've been coming to for some time."

Roughly 150 to 160 museums and county historical societies get funding — this fiscal year, mostly small grants of $5,000 to $33,000 — from the commission. Officials around the state say the threat of losing that money is pushing some museums toward closing, though no area museum director would acknowledge contemplating such a move.

The Chester County Historical Society received $33,000 this year; elimination of the grant, plus sharp declines from other funding sources, would affect operations significantly, president Kimberly A. Hall said. The society, which cut hours and salaries in January, had an operating budget of $1.4 million this year.

"We're exploring options along all lines," Hall said. "It's all changing."

The commission's $10,000 grant is critical to the Historical Society of Montgomery County, which has a budget of $140,000, said Karen Wolfe, the society's executive director. The county matches the state money.

President Ella Aderman said loss of the grant would force the society to "hunker down" and forgo new initiatives. It is unclear if the county would withdraw its matching dollars.

The Pennsylvania Federation of Museums and Historical Organizations' survey of commission grantees turned up several museums that could close within a year, its executive director, Deborah Filipi, said last week. Many more said they would cut hours, staffing, programming — anything to stay afloat.

"The governor's budget cuts are a disgrace for museums," said Filipi, whose federation is partially funded by a small commission grant — which it is losing. "Our organization will probably have to close down."

Also affected would be the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which has provided ongoing funding for 12 heritage areas across Pennsylvania. That funding, roughly $1.9 million, would be eliminated.

A department spokeswoman said several heritage areas could cease operations. The Schuylkill River National and State Heritage Area, which stretches from Pottsville to Philadelphia, received about $200,000 from the state this year, said Kurt D. Zwikl, executive director of the Schuylkill River Greenway Association. It also receives federal dollars and will continue to operate, albeit at a reduced level. (Five of the state's 12 heritage areas have national designations.)

Zwikl said his organization worked with communities on the Schuylkill River Trail, economic development, conservation, recreation, cultural, and other projects. Loss of the state money, he said, would "be significant."

"We'd be unable to provide grants back into the community," he said. "I've heard other state heritage areas say, 'It will put us out of business.' It will not put us out of business, but it will affect some of these programs, and it will affect operations and staffing."

Even as small and medium-size museums face eradication of state funding, larger ones — called "nonpreferred" institutions in budget jargon — are looking at cuts of only about 10 percent. The Franklin Institute, for instance, received $759,000 this fiscal year; Rendell has proposed $683,000 for fiscal 2010.

Similarly, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts — an agency that, for budget purposes, is within the governor's office — would have its grant-making pot cut about 10 percent, to $14 million. Its operating budget would be cut $79,000, to $1.2 million.

Officials and historical-museum advocates see inequity in such numbers.

The arts council "and the nonpreferreds were reduced; we get zero," said Peter Sibert, head of the Heritage Center Museum in Lancaster. "To basically lose everything — that's a different kettle of fish. That changes the nature of the game."

Chuck Ardo, Rendell's spokesman, said Rendell had to make "drastic reductions" in areas that did not affect the "health, safety, and welfare of Pennsylvanians." In a follow-up e-mail, he said the big nonpreferred institutions had received the same 10 percent cuts "as hundreds of other line items."

As for the elimination of museum grants from the commission's budget, Ardo wrote that these programs "have traditionally been funded through legislative initiative as add-ons to the governor's proposal."

Asked to explain, he said: "The Museum Assistance Grant line item has traditionally been included in the governor's budget, and then the General Assembly has typically added to it during enactment."

In other words, what the governor has taken away, the legislature "typically" has reinstated. Whether that will happen in this economic climate is uncertain at best.

For David Young, head of Cliveden House in Germantown, which is facing a loss of $10,000, the case for funding is clear: "There have been reams of studies showing the economic impact" of cultural organizations in general and heritage tourism in particular.

"It's a puzzling thing," said Joseph Kelly, head of the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, which would lose about $250,000, forcing a sharp cutback in its popular speakers program.

"If you close down and the collections aren't cared for, what are the attractions that people are coming to Pennsylvania to see?"