PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles Fine Arts Center could cost the city as much as $100,000 a year to stay open.
The arts center, which includes a gallery and outdoor sculpture park, is requesting that the city pay for at least one of its two employees so that it can maintain a balanced budget, said Jake Seniuk, director and curator.
The arts center at 1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd. is owned by the city, and its two employees — Seniuk and Assistant Director Barbara Slavik — are technically city employees.
But due to the agreement that created it about 25 years ago, the city has had no obligation to fund the facility, which has survived off of a trust since its inception.
“It’s out of date,” Seniuk said.
“It’s really keeping us in 1986.”
All of the center’s expenses, including the salaries of Seniuk and Slavik, have been covered by the trust account, set up when Esther Barrows Webster bequeathed the land to the city to be used for the arts.
Webster is the late owner-publisher of the Port Angeles Evening News, which is now the Peninsula Daily News and is under unrelated ownership.
The combined salaries for the two employees is about $100,000 a year.
The trust account has been diminished due to the recession, and the center is facing a $40,000 budget shortfall this year — a sizeable chunk of its annual $175,000 budget.
A committee made up of representatives of the arts center and the city will take up the issue at a meeting Feb. 23 at the center.
City Manager Kent Myers said all options are on the table.
But any additional funding will have to be balanced with other obligations and the city’s limited revenue.
“The goal is to create a sustainable future,” he said, “and try to avoid the annual debates and discussions.”
The committee members are Seniuk, Myers, Richard Bonine, city recreation services manager; Linda Kheriaty, interim city Finance Director; Linda Crow, arts center foundation president; Vicci Rudin, board of trustees chairwoman; Betsy Robbins, foundation vice president; City Councilman Max Mania and City Councilwoman Sissi Bruch.
Admission is free to the center, which is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.