Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 3, 1991 TAG: 9102040275
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Most likely, local museums would remain open. The symphony, ballet and opera would continue to perform.
Still, the effect would be to take more than $1 million out of the Roanoke Valley's arts community. You can't do that without a severe impact.
Among those most threatened are service organizations, such as the Arts Council of Roanoke Valley and Center in the Square, which don't make money off ticket sales but play a crucial role in supporting the arts.
Center in the Square subsidizes rent, maintenance and utilities of the cultural organizations it houses. For the first time last year, it raised funds for its operating expenses. Now it faces total elimination of its $237,000 state appropriation.
The Arts Council's future also looks bleak. It may get hit with a 75 percent cut in its operating-support grant.
If the $1 million in state funds vanishes from the Roanoke Valley next year, first on the chopping block for all cultural organizations would be administrative staff and programs that don't generate income.
Already, the Arts Council, the Roanoke Museum of Fine Arts, the Science Museum of Western Virginia and the Virginia Museum of Transportation have begun laying off employees. Others would follow suit.
Ironically, some of the programs likeliest to be cut back or canceled appeal to a broader community, and to audiences that might not attend a major symphony or theater event.
Mill Mountain Theater and the science museum, for example, reach into schools throughout the region with theater and science education programs. These programs are threatened.
So, too, are the Arts Council's summer "Brown Bag" concerts, held Fridays at lunchtime in the Crestar plaza. They have been free to the public.
Especially costly programs, such as the "One Night Stands" series (which is bringing the Kronos Quartet to Roanoke for an upcoming appearance), are likely victims of funding cuts.
Even programs with relatively healthy finances would suffer. The Roanoke Symphony Orchestra would maintain its six subscription concerts, for instance. But its director already is considering eliminating Sunday concerts, halving its ArtSounds series (chamber music at art exhibits), reducing the orchestra's size on three of the subscription concerts, and holding fewer rehearsals.
Arts and cultural offerings are a crucial community asset anyplace, but especially in Roanoke, which is staking much of its identity and economic-development plans on cultural and festival attractions. It's too easy to say the private sector should fill the funding gap left by state cutbacks, especially when a recession is under way.
State aid for museums in Virginia averages only 14 percent of their financial support. They receive 64 percent in private contributions and earned income. Even without the proposed cutbacks, Virginia provides less per-capita support for the arts than all its neighboring states.
Yes, the state faces a massive shortfall. But legislators should look to the long term. Won't their constituents and local employers expect the cultural amenities five years from now? Aren't an attractive quality of life and expanded tourism part of the state's strategy for building prosperity?
Surely it would be unwise to abandon investments with demonstrably handsome returns. More than 260,000 people walked through Center in the Square's doors last year: That translates into a lot of economic and educational benefits.
Regardless of the extent of cutbacks approved this session, some part of Roanoke's cultural scene will survive. Yet the arts remind us that survival is not enough. This community has sought to do more than get by with minimal support for cultural institutions. The drastically reduced aid Gov. Wilder proposes is less than minimal.
by CNB