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Friday, 26 June 2009 |
By MATT NICHOLS
Staff Writer
Less than a month before the 40th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s historic walk on the moon, a local museum in his name received more disheartening news.
In his state budget proposal, Gov. Ted Strickland announced he would cut $6 million from Ohio Historical Society (OHS) funding, reducing the Society’s annual funds from $13.5 million two years ago to $7.5 million for fiscal year 2010 — a 45 percent cut.
Earlier this month, the OHS was sent scrambling after members of the state Senate included a $2 million cut to OHS funds in their version of the state budget.
At the time, OHS spokeswoman Kim Schuette said a $2 million cut would greatly hinder a chance for the Armstrong Museum to seek a local partner to save it from closure.
Strickland’s proposed cut is $4 million more than the Senate proposal — a move Schuette and OHS Executive Director and CEO Bill Laidlaw deemed as devastating.
“Cuts of this magnitude would be devastating to all our programs,” Laidlaw said. “We can’t continue to make across-the-board reductions anymore. We would have to restructure to become a much smaller organization.”
The cuts are all part of Strickland’s attempt to fill a $3.2 billion shortfall in the state’s budget.
Schuette said OHS officials never imagined Strickland’s proposal would be greater than the Senate’s recommendation, and were blindsided by his announcement last Friday.
“We’re just flummoxed right now,” Schuette said. “We’re going to have to make huge fundamental changes.”
Schuette said the OHS has already removed $300,000 in funds from their reserves to try to keep all 58 sites opened through Labor Day, hopefully granting the sites enough time to locate potential partners.
But even the reserve funds may not be enough to keep the doors opened.
“We’re hesitant to go out and say sites are going to be opened all summer because of the volatility of the situation,” Schuette said. “It’s still not settled.”
For months, the search to form partnerships has been the primary course of action by the OHS to save many of their sites. The local partner would maintain the day-to-day operations of the museum while the OHS would maintain the building exterior and grounds.
But the recent budget proposals make a successful partnership tougher to obtain, Schuette said.
“The biggest problem is every time a line item is cut, it’s less we can offer a group for subsidy,” Schuette said. “It takes that much longer to find a group that is interested.”
A call to Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum Director Becky Macwhinney was not returned prior to press time.
In Wapakoneta, a group titled the Armstrong Air & Space Museum Association was formed to work with the state Historical Society and find a way to create a team to save the museum.
The group of residents was founded by Wapakoneta Economic Development Executive Director Greg Myers and former Armstrong Museum Director John Zwez. Until the budget is signed by Strickland, there is little the organization could do.
“We’re not sure where everything stands right now, so we’re in a wait and see attitude,” Zwez said. “We really don’t know what’s going to happen at this point.”
Zwez told the Wapakoneta Daily News that despite the constant stream of bad news coming from Columbus, he was optimistic the museum could be saved, whatever the final budget says.
“We’re going to get all our ducks in a row so to speak so we can be ready to officially present an offer for a partnership,” Zwez said. “We’re going to take whatever steps are necessary to make sure it remains open to the public.”
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 27 June 2009 )
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