Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 15, 1995 TAG: 9502150061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
This time, the Roanoke County Republican is pushing a requirement that Virginia's six state-run museums generate at least 30 percent of their operating budget from outside sources or lose part of their state funding.
But the museum that would be hit hardest by such a rule would be the beleaguered Virginia Museum of Natural History, which over the past year has beaten back repeated attempts either to move the museum, slash its funding or do away with its status as a state agency.
Bell has been at the center of two of those efforts.
A year ago, Bell championed a short-lived proposal to merge the museum with Virginia's Explore Park, a move that Martinsville boosters regarded as a prelude to moving the museum out of their city. A few weeks ago, Bell unsuccessfully proposed cutting the Martinsville museum's budget in half as a way to restore funding to Explore and various other Roanoke Valley attractions.
Now, Bell has taken on museum funding statewide - and this time he's having more success.
He's proposed - and the Senate has adopted - a requirement intended to make Virginia's state-run museums less dependent on taxpayer support and more reliant on admissions and private contributions.
Bell says he's just looking out for the taxpayers, who shouldn't have to subsidize Virginia's museums completely.
He points out that private museums that receive state funding, such as Roanoke's Center in the Square, already are required to raise a certain amount in private contributions to qualify for state funding.
The six museums that are state agencies should be required to do the same, Bell says.
"To be a state museum, there are other obligations you have to have," Bell says, "and one of those is to go into the private sector. We don't expect ad infinitum to pay 100 percent of the bill."
In fact, all six of Virginia's state-run museums rely on admissions or private contributions for some of their operating money. At the high end is the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond, which receives 46 percent of its operating budget from private sources.
But three museums fall below the 30 percent threshold Bell has proposed:
The Museum of American Frontier Culture in Staunton, at 26 percent.
Gunston Hall, the Lorton home of patriot George Mason, at 22 percent.
The Virginia Museum of Natural History, based in Martinsville with branches in Blacksburg and Charlottesville, at 13 percent.
Under Bell's proposal, all three would lose a portion of their state funding; the Martinsville museum would lose 17 percent of its proposed $1.9 million appropriation.
It's unclear whether Bell's requirement will wind up in the final budget the General Assembly must adopt before it adjourns Feb. 25. The budget now is in the hands of a conference committee that will iron out differences between the Senate and House versions.
And although Bell's proposal sailed quietly through the Senate, some opposition is starting to develop on the House side. Martinsville's delegation, in particular, has signaled its intention to fight, or at least modify, the funding rule.
"The museum just seems to be a magnet for controversy," says Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Martinsville.
Of the three museums that would lose funding under Bell's proposal, only the natural history museum shows much concern.
A spokesman for the frontier culture museum said his facility was so close to the 30 percent mark the proposed rule probably wouldn't make much difference.
The director of Gunston Hall quibbled with the state's accounting, contending that the state isn't counting private funding the historic home receives that doesn't pass through the state treasury the way admission fees do. If those funds were counted, Tom Lainhoff said, the figures would show that Gunston Hall receives about half its operating funds from private sources.
Meanwhile, leaders at the natural history museum contended that they're being unfairly singled out.
Unlike the others, the Martinsville museum doesn't charge admission. "We're distinctly different from a destination attraction, because we're a research facility" that happens to display its work, said spokesman Don Sutton. "We're getting thrown in with some apples when we're an orange."
Other museum directors said they weren't surprised that the state might start requiring a certain level of private fund raising. "I think that is the way of the future," said Gunston Hall's Lainhoff.
Bell agreed. "What we're seeing in the '90s is a look for alternative ways to fund some of these things."
But John Edwards, Bell's likely Democratic opponent this fall, found fault with Bell's approach. Private contributions to state museums should be encouraged, Edwards agreed. "But to set an arbitrary figure doesn't make sense. Every one has to be looked at individually."
He also warned that the state shouldn't "abdicate its responsibility" to provide museums, which he called an "important component" of both education and the quality of life the state pitches in economic development.
He also said Bell once again is showing his disregard for regional cooperation by introducing a measure that would hurt a museum in Western Virginia. "The only way to be effective in the Senate is to work together," Edwards said.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995
Memo: ***CORRECTION***