Living on the Knife’s Edge
The Status of New York State’s Museums 2012
For many of New York State’s nearly 2,000 museums and heritage organizations 2012 will be another year of trying to maintain balance in a punishing financial environment that has affected everything from endowment income to school visitation. Despite some notable high points last year, such as record-breaking attendance for the Alexander McQueen show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the reopening of the New-York Historical Society, the announcement of a new museum studies degree program at SUNY Buffalo, and several expansions and capital upgrades, this year is shaping up to be not only lean, but mean.
A national survey conducted by the American Association of Museums of 383 museums reports that 70% of respondents are in economic stress, with 32% suffering “severe” or “very severe” stress. We know from our own research that 84% of the state’s museums responding to our polls have been affected “somewhat” or “significantly” by the financial crisis – extrapolated to the field that amounts to more than 1,500 organizations. That is living on the knife’s edge.
Museums are Part of the State’s DNA:
The Empire state is famous for many things: iconic monuments, baseball, great architecture, Niagara Falls, Wall Street and much more. But no list of New York highpoints is complete without its world-class museums. There are nearly 2,000 museums and heritage organizations in the state, along with 112 zoos, botanical organizations and nature centers. Some are internationally known; others are all-volunteer organizations. Together, they build community identity, jump- start the economic engines of cities, towns and villages, and educate families, senior citizens, and more than 6.6 million students annually.
Seventeen thousand people work in New York’s museums, jobs that generate more than a billion dollars for the state’s economy annually. And museums are not just the province of Manhattan. Every county has at least one, underpinning the state’s tourism industry, and resulting in a robust 68 million visitors to the state annually.
What the State’s Museums Do:
New York’s museums protect the state’s natural and cultural heritage. Incorporated alongside schools, libraries and public broadcasting within the University of the State of New York (USNY), the state’s museums and heritage organizations hold a recognized place in the New York’s educational landscape.
Drive the Economy: Museums roots in the state are deep, dating to 1791 with the founding of the Albany Institute of History & Art. Historic sites anchor neighborhoods; community museums revitalize empty main streets; big museums are tourist magnets; and in the midst of diesel fumes and concrete, zoos and botanical gardens transport visitors to the rain forest and the Arctic. And museums make good neighbors. Together they pump more than $1 billion dollars into the state’s economy every year primarily through wages, taxes and the purchase of goods and services.
Steward Collections: Museums are collecting institutions. In an average year, the public donates one million objects to the state’s museums. The communities museums serve, whether urban or rural, local or international, entrust them with their natural and cultural heritage. It is no accident that the 9/11 Memorial will include a museum. Museum collections contain not only examples of great beauty, imagination and genius, but also individual and collective memory.
Educate: Museums are natural teaching organizations. Watching a polar bear lumber across the ice or seeing static electricity make a classmate’s hair stand on end are both learning experiences. Just as being in the presence of a Picasso or breathing in the same room where Washington Irving once wrote. But New York’s museums do not just let objects or living collections speak for themselves. New York is the only state in the country that incorporates its museums and heritage organizations through its State Education Department (SED). The state’s museum community takes its educational responsibility seriously, providing standards-based programs to 35 percent of all students in grades kindergarten through 12. According to the most recent figures, that means 6.6 million children have a museum experience every year whether on a school visit, in their classrooms or via the Internet. Ninety percent of these same museums develop classroom materials for teachers and students and 59 percent provide teacher-training workshops, all based on SED curricula.
Partner: New York’s museums are adept at matching public money with private dollars. Their volunteers, members, and trustees, give time (9.6 million hours annually) and money that museums leverage against state and federal dollars. Yet the only two state-funded programs providing critical general operating support to museums, living collections, and heritage organizations are the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and the Zoos, Botanical Gardens and Aquarium (ZBGA) program. Separate from NYSCA, ZBGA is funded through the Environmental Protection Fund, monies that come from the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.
But no matter where the money comes from, the idea of public/private partnership is the essence of what museums are about. The very act of entrusting a nonprofit to care for, exhibit and give meaning to an object that once belonged to you is the beginning of a relationship between the donor (the public) and the museum that is embedded in the state’s museum community. Their belief in that relationship is why more than 12,400 New Yorkers—often the state’s business leaders—serve as museum trustees, volunteering time, expertise, and generous support. They help museums protect their assets and support partnerships between private donations and public money from state or local grants.
The Museum Community’s Challenges:
So in a state with a world-class community of museums, abundant collections, great teaching programs, housed in architecturally significant buildings, where are the challenges?
From a regulatory standpoint, the New York State Board of Regents must be concerned that so many of its chartered museums and heritage organizations are living on a knife’s edge without financial safety nets. Their staffs have been reduced, their hours, programs and exhibitions have been cut back; they are cutting corners on collections care or spending their reserve funds (if they have any) to pay their bills or cover deficits. The state’s museums and heritage organizations hold millions of items in the public trust for the benefit of the people of New York. Yet stewardship of these materials can be compromised without the people to care for them and make them available to citizens, and without safe environments to protect them.
But there is little relief in sight for the next several years. One can expect that those institutions hardest hit may require 5-10 years to regain the programmatic and financial ground they’ve lost since 2009, if they don’t dissolve first. That means living on the knife’s edge.
We have a State Education Department that is unable to support the development of the museums it incorporates and regulates. We have seen little evidence that the Department can truly integrate the elements of the University of the State of New York in ways that both benefit schools, libraries, museums, public broadcasting AND students and their teachers. That means living on the knife’s edge.
We have a State Arts Council that was once a national leader in public funding for arts and cultural organizations and is one of just two state agencies that provide general operating support to museums. But NYSCA’s grant-making ability has been reduced by more than 40% in just the last five years. That means living on the knife’s edge.
We have a Division of Tourism that suffers from a chronic lack of resources to promote the culture and heritage of the state. The Department of Economic Development has no staff dedicated exclusively to promoting the state’s cultural and historic resources (which it once had) and it suffers from a shrinking tourism program budget that is vastly outpaced by many neighboring and similarly sized states. That means living on the knife’s edge.
We have just come through the first round of competitive economic development funding where NYSCA was not one of the 14 state agencies making up the Lt. Governor’s Chairman’s Committee. If fact, there were no representatives from nonprofit museums or arts organizations among the dozens of community leaders who were tapped to serve on one of the 10 Regional Economic Development Councils. That means living on the knife’s edge.
Unlike schools, libraries and public broadcasting, which together received in excess of $100 million in state and capital aid this year from the State Education Department, chartered museums and heritage organizations (which are most museums and heritage organizations) are incorporated and regulated by the State Education Department, but receive no aid from it. That means living on the knife’s edge.
Strategic Priorities for New York’s Museum Community in FY 2012:
Preserving the Infrastructure:
- Rebuild the New York State Council on the Arts. In 1960, New York State was the FIRST in the nation to establish state arts agency. NYSCA must be sustained as a strong independent entity, and its Museum Program as the primary funder of museums. The FY2012 executive budget holds NYSCA’s local assistance funding to the FY2011 level of $31.6 million – while this is welcome news, it remains an astounding 58% below its highest point just two decades ago. This decline is unprecedented among state agency local assistance funding.
- Restore the legislative line item of $450,000 to the New York Council for the Humanities. This funding would provide a renewed, publicized offer of small grants ($3,000-$10,000) to the state’s best public humanities programs in communities from Long Island’s Five Towns to Niagara Falls. Council funding goes to a wide range of museums and heritage organizations of all sizes and does not overlook smaller institutions in upstate cities and rural areas.
- The Zoos, Botanical Gardens and Aquariums Program received $9 million in FY2011 and has not been reduced in the FY2012 executive budget. These dollars are a good investment, because they allow organizations with ‘living collections’ to leverage public money against private gifts. The catalyst of public money is what drives the engine for many museums across New York State.
- Help ensure that SED has a deeper understanding of the museum community it regulates, the challenges it faces, and that it acknowledges the innovation, imagination and success of museum education programs across the state, recognizing that the educational contributions of museums are equal to those of libraries, archives and public broadcasting.
Collaboration and Partnership:
- Create a seat at the economic development table for museums and cultural institutions because they are a driving economic force. Help museums partner with business executives to find innovative solutions to the challenges of the new economy.
- Uniform highway signage is desperately needed by museums and heritage organizations – indeed all cultural institutions – particularly in smaller communities and rural areas. Let’s help audiences find these great places!
- Urge government to see museums and heritage organizations like the small businesses that they are. Yes, they are nonprofits providing communities with important educational and cultural services, but they are also employers facing skyrocketing health care and energy costs.
- Create a fund for cash-strapped museums and historical organizations to buy time for restructuring, thus forestalling the pressure to turn collections into cash.
- Build easy-to-access information about museums and their education programs into State Education Department curriculum standards so that teachers are aware of the programs available to them and are encouraged to use museum resources in classroom instruction.
Innovation and Oversight:
- Appoint a Regent who is a museum professional. Doing so would acknowledge the complexity of museum governance and give an equal voice to a community the Regents charter.
- Help the museum community plan for growth. The Regents grant 20 to 30 provisional charters annually to new museums, but with diminishing resources available and long-established organizations struggling to maintain funding and audience, no organization should enter the field without substantial endowment, making it questionable whether more museums results in better cultural heritage stewardship or education.
- Create a committee that will work with the Attorney General’s office, the bankruptcy courts, Board of Regents, and the Museum Association of New York to address the complex questions surrounding deaccessioning, providing a voice for extraordinary collections imperiled by fiscal crisis, bankruptcy or dissolution.
