The Sheldon Museum is facing a significant cut to its personnel appropriation when the fiscal year begins on July 1.  This small local history museum and archive has a budget of around $250,000 and whatever grants we can obtain for projects.  It has a staff of one full-time director and six part-time positions with varying hours (4 to 10-hours a week janitor to ¾- time operations coordinator), seasons and responsibilities.  The Borough owns the building and gives an annual appropriation for personnel costs.  The collection is owned by Sheldon Museum and Cultural Center, Inc.  Operating expenses are paid by the museum with funds from admissions, store, donations, and grants.  The cut will make it necessary to eliminate a position, the collections and exhibits coordinator position.  It was either that or the Educator.  Both are ½ time positions for less than a full year.   I’ve also thought of splitting the loss between the two positions and seek grants to compensate.

In discussions with the Mayor and an Assembly person, I was asked about other museums --  What are their budgets? Who owns the collections?  Etcetera.  Would you please answer the questions below?  I would like to see how other small museums are funded and what kind of financial and other support they have.  You can send them to me and I’ll compile the results for the list so that there aren’t so many posts going to all of the inboxes (assuming that my questions are answered).

What is the number of full-time staff and part-time staff?

From where do the funds for personnel costs come?

From where do the operating costs come?

Who owns the museum’s collections?

Who owns the building?

Do you charge for school group visits?

Do you charge local groups to hold meetings or programs at the museum?  If so, how much?

If the local government does not own the collections, what kind of help or support does it give, if any, to the museum?

Thank you,

Jerrie