Museum to close?

Unless it can find help from public entities in the Permian Basin, the Presidential Museum may have to close its doors on or around July 1, but the facility's curator remains optimistic Odessa residents won't let what she calls a cherished part fof their community disappear.

The museum's troubles come almost exactly four years after a 15-member panel of community leaders was brought in to assess the museum's even-then-troubled financial situation, only to disband after failing to reach a consensus of direction with museum trustees.

Today, about a month after budget shortfalls at the museum forced its curator, Lettie England, to unsuccessfully ask Ector County commissioners for $25,000 to keep the museum running, she said she wants to look into possible expanded partnerships with public bodies like Odessa College, the city of Odessa, the county and the Ector County Independent School District.

"If it's as part of a collaboration," she said, "then it's not a huge outlay on any one of those."

Despite her pleas about the museum's "dire financial straits" during the meeting in late April, commissioners told England they were powerless to help the museum until the next budget is up for a vote in October, so she began exploring other options.

Closing the museum, which has an annual operating budget of between $150,000 and $165,000, however, seems unlikely to England, who said she "has faith."

"I do not expect that to happen," she said about prospect of closing the museum. "I expect to find a way to continue on."

David Austin, the county's auditor, said the earliest the museum would be able to receive public funds in any form or fashion would be on Oct. 1, when next year's budget takes effect.

Planning for that next budget will get rolling during the next month, he said, but there are no guarantees the county will have on hand the funding England said the museum needs.

"It's really too early to even speculate whether the court would even entertain that or not," he said.

The 45-year-old museum moved into its new $1.6 million building on the University of Texas of the Permian Basin campus in the fall of 2002 and received its last annual funding of about $23,000 from the county three years ago, England said.

Since then, it has sustained itself, but a December 2007 arson involving the former Bush home located on museum grounds set the museum back. Now England is looking for more community support that will not only keep the museum's doors open, but also will help the institution digitize and expand its collection. 

Mark Palmer, associate director of Nonprofit Management Center, the area group that in 2005 helped the museum arrange the blue-ribbon panel to get it back on track, declined to comment on the museum's current financial situation, citing the museum's termination of the center's services four years ago. Palmer added that he had no way to know the museum's current situation.

Admission fees, gift shop sales, donations and membership dues pay for the museum's expenses, England said, but it's slowly becoming apparent these revenue streams are insufficient - despite the museum drawing a "very impressive" 865 visitors in the first quarter of this year.

"I don't want to say things are just bad, bad, bad," she said, later adding, however, that she is concerned.

"Anybody in this position would be," she said. "The museum is a viable entity. We bring people here from all over the world."

England said the museum's economic impact on Odessa thus far in 2009 alone has been somewhere in the vicinity of $80,000, and she hopes the community will recognize the museum's economic, historical and cultural value and lend a hand.  

"Odessans have always come to the aid of those things they feel are really important," she said, "and I think they will again."

BY THE NUMBERS

Museum traffic by month/estimated economic impact on community.

>> January: 167 visitors, $14,375 in impact.

>> February: 184 visitors, $45,000 in impact.

>> March: 514 visitors, $20,000 in impact.

Source: Lettie England, curator.