The State of South Carolina is in financial trouble due to a reduction in projected revenue. Who isn’t? The Governor of SC is calling for the heads of State agencies to come up with ideas to reduce their budgets by 10 percent – before the State Legislature has to do it. I’m wondering what Suzette Surkamer, Executive Director of the South Carolina Arts Commission will do.
Will Surkamer cut 10 percent of programs and services or 10 percent of administration overhead – like staff? My guess is cuts will be in programing, grants and services. But she will feel really bad about it.
I have a few suggestions. First Surkamer could retire. She’s been working for the Arts Commission for over 30 years. She could move on and others could move up the ladder and leave a vacancy at the bottom of the chain. Surkamer has been at the top long enough and that would put a big dent in that 10 percent figure.
Surkamer could cut the position of Visual Arts Coordinator. We’re not getting much out of that person anyway. I’m not sure too many would even notice the difference. A very few would, but not many.
Surkamer could cut the Arts Commission’s Regional Media Arts Center. The Center provides resource and network information for film/video exhibitions in ten southeastern states. Let a richer state handle this service. Our state has a separate film office anyway. She might argue that the center brings in revenue from those other states, but we are picking up the overhead.
Surkamer could also tell the SC Arts Foundation that they would have to get their own office, phone number and staff. But that wouldn’t really save much, since both organizations are one in the same. The Foundation is just a shadow organization which acts as a slush fund for the Arts Commission. If the Foundation is real – what a good time for them to get to work and bring in some money to make up for the loss of that 10 percent. The Foundation could cut the party surrounding the Verner Awards, but then without the party – why give awards?
Well it’s going to be a hard job. But she’ll probably just tell everyone to take a 10 percent cut across the board – as if that’s the fair thing to do – even though it’s not – staff salaries and benefits are probably protected by contracts, but programs, grants and services are not.
We’ll soon see what happens.