State historic sights spared in latest Senate budget proposal

RALEIGH — Friends of state-supported museums and state historic sights are breathing a sigh of relief as many cuts and closings that had been proposed in the Senate budget last week have disappeared.

The Museum of the Cape Fear in Fayetteville and the Museum of the Albemarle, both slated to be closed under a proposed Senate budget a week ago, would be spared the budget ax.

The budget, which gained tentative approval in the Senate on Wednesday, proposes to phase out state funding of Tryon Palace in New Bern.

Tryon Palace was North Carolina’s first permanent capitol and was the home of Royal Governor William Tryon. Fire destroyed the original palace, but it was rebuilt and reopened in the middle of the 20^th century.

The budget, which legislative leaders hope to deliver to Gov. Bev Perdue by the end of the week, would result in a 36.4 percent reduction in state appropriations during the 2011-12 fiscal year and a 57 percent reduction in state appropriations during the second year of the two-year budget. That’s down from a proposed cut of 88.8 percent that was in last week’s budget.

The spending plan calls on the Department of Cultural Resources to come up with a plan to make the site financially self-sufficient by the 2014-15 fiscal year.

“It’s a work in progress as you might imagine,” said Kay Williams, director of Tryon Palace.

Williams said that the cuts for the upcoming budget year would mean a reduction of 35 full-time positions at Tryon Palace. Twenty-five of those positions are filled and 10 are vacant, Williams said.

She said her immediate focus is on getting ready to meet the budget stipulations by the beginning of the next fiscal year, which starts on July 1.

“I’ve been given 30 days to figure this out,” Williams said.

Last week, Williams said that state appropriations represented 67 percent of Tryon Palace’s budget, with the remaining 33 percent coming from receipts and private funding.

Maryanne Friend, assistant secretary for cultural resources, noted that a transition fund would be set up for another museum, the Transportation Museum in Spencer.

“The goal there is to move it to receipts-based,” Friend said.

Barry Smith is editor and publisher of M2Mpolitics.com. You can call him at 919.821.5570 or email him at barrysmith@freedom.com.