linkin park

Historic Tryon Palace with its 18th-century gardens tells the story of Colonial North Carolina. Its staff could

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Budget would cut historic sites' staff

he state budget now before Gov. Bev Perdue would force staffing cuts at some state historic sites and museums, likely resulting in shorter hours, reduced programming and increased reliance on donations and admission fees.

Three sites - Tryon Palace in New Bern, the N.C. Transportation Museum in Spencer, and the Roanoke Island Festival Park in Manteo - would eventually have to become self-supporting, or close some or all of their exhibits.

Tryon Palace, which just opened the new $60 million N.C. History Center in October, would see a 36 percent cut in state funding in the coming budget year, a 57 percent cut in the next year and loss of all state funding by the 2014 budget year.

The attraction is regarded as a major economic engine in New Bern and the surrounding area, drawing people from every state and from abroad. The palace, which got about $4.1 million in state money for budget year ending June 30 and raised more than $1 million more from ticket sales and private sources, is said to generate $41 million in spending in Eastern North Carolina each year.

But Tryon Palace's value as an educational tool for the more than 35,000 school children who tour it each year, and as a touchstone for North Carolinians interested in their past, is beyond measure, director Kay Williams said.

"We have a stewardship obligation to use objects to make history come alive and be exciting for the generation that is coming to visit now," Williams said. "But we also have to be about preserving North Carolina's history for unborn generations of North Carolinians to come. A hundred years from now, children should still be able to look at George Washington's letter."

Other states cut back

Hard economic times have prompted many states to cut support for institutions and programs that promote arts and recreation. In California, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown has announced plans to close 70 of the state's 278 state parks, while Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, recently vetoed funding for the Kansas Arts Commission, ending 45 years of state support for the arts in favor of a promise to develop a privately financed arts foundation.

And the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs this year gave about $2.3 million to local museums, orchestras, theater groups and historical societies, less than 10 percent what it gave a decade ago.

Over the past two years, the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, which oversees 27 state historic sites and seven museums, among other institutions, has seen its operations budget cut by 61 percent, to the point that it's rationing gas for lawn mowers, said Dr. Jeffrey J. Crow, deputy secretary of the department's Division of Archives and History.

"So when the legislature comes and says, 'You've got to take another $200,000 out of the operational budget of the Museum of History,' and it has only $79,000 in its operational budget, how do you do that?

"All we've got left to give is positions with people in them."

The overall cultural resources budget would be cut by 12.5 percent in the coming year, a level that many legislators find defendable. During negotiations late last month, Sen. Jim Davis, a Republican from Franklin, said that cuts would be necessary because the state's budget shortfall is so deep it can't be bridged simply by cutting waste, fraud and abuse. Republican Sen. Andrew Brock, who represents Davie and Rowan counties, said then that lawmakers were trying to treat every state agency equally.

But Rep. John Torbett, a Republican of Gaston County, said he was sorry to see the legislature go beyond the cuts to Cultural Resources proposed by the governor. Torbett said the cuts were out of proportion with those proposed for other segments of government, and would have forced some attractions to close right away.

"These sites provide that tangible place where people can go and stand in the place where our forefathers have stood," he said, "and leave us with the thought that if a mistake was made, let's learn from it so we don't make that same mistake again."

Making the trains run

No historic sites or museums would close immediately as a result of cuts proposed in the 2011-2012 budget. But the budget lays out additional cuts at several sites in the coming years as well, and says several sites would receive no state funding at all starting in two to three years.

That might be possible at one site, Crow said: the N.C. Transportation Museum, built on the site of the former Southern Railway Company's steam locomotive repair shop in Spencer, near Salisbury. Since it opened in 1983, the site has developed a devoted support group and a niche in the tourism market, drawing more than 100,000 people a year.

The attraction charges for a short train ride and other activities. But like most other state historic sites, the Transportation Museum has never charged an admission, until now. If the proposed budget goes into effect, it would begin charging admission July 1.

"While it would suffer a decline in visitation if we have to go to an admission fee, in the long run, it could probably still go on," Crow said.

Buildings could close

Tryon Palace, on the other hand, already charges up to $20 admission. But it relies on state funding to help pay for staffing at the reconstructed palace, three historic homes and the N.C. History Center. The state contributed about $42 million to establish the center.

Williams, the director, says that if Tryon Palace gets no more state money beginning with the 2014 budget, she would almost certainly have to close some of the buildings, at a time when attendance is up 40 percent because of the History Center addition.

Once buildings begin to close, Williams says, revenue spirals downward.

"If we can't keep our attractions open, then attendance drops, and we lose earned income," she said. "We also lose member support. People are less willing to donate if you don't look successful."

Tryon Palace has been a bargain to the state in many ways. Built entirely with private funds on the footprint of the original Colonial-era governor's palace, the site also is a repository of tens of millions of dollars worth of historical artifacts, nearly all of them donated or bought with private money.

The History Center, adjacent to the palace, is as up-to-date in its exhibits as the palace is authentically 18th-century in its interpretation. Putting either building into mothballs would be problematic; the history center is full of interactive electronics that require constant upkeep, and the palace and grounds hold artifacts that must be preserved under specific conditions.

Williams mentioned a letter in the palace's collection from George Washington to Richard Dobbs Spaight, a New Bern man who represented North Carolina in the Constitutional Convention following the American Revolution. Paper items need to be kept in a stable environment to prevent deterioration.

"We can't just cut off the lights," Williams said.

Out-of-the-way places

Given time, Crow said, many state historic sites might be able to raise more money from their donors, but most would never be able to support themselves, even if they charged admission.

"We have strong public-private partnerships in many places," Crow said. "But you can't do that across the board. Many of these sites are in small, remote, rural counties, and while they may have a very enthusiastic support group, they're not in a position to raise thousands and thousands of dollars.

"And certainly you can't expect them to provide the same level of service, depending on volunteers and fundraising from support groups, that our millions in travelers have come to expect."

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