{"id":16992,"date":"2013-01-07T14:56:35","date_gmt":"2013-01-07T19:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=16992"},"modified":"2013-01-07T14:56:35","modified_gmt":"2013-01-07T19:56:35","slug":"city-cushions-ballets-shortfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/city-council\/2013\/01\/07\/city-cushions-ballets-shortfall\/","title":{"rendered":"City Cushions Ballet\u2019s Shortfall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Carolina Ballet will get some emergency funding from the city after losing funding from one of its significant and regular donors.<\/p>\n<p>Ballet Executive Director Lisa Jones said one of the organization&#8217;s major donors is no longer in the position to make regular contributions. The unnamed donor helped carry the organization through recession, Jones said.<\/p>\n<p>The ballet was able to raise funds to help cover the loss, but was left with a $75,000 shortfall.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-16995\" alt=\"Carolina_Ballet_Budget\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Carolina_Ballet_Budget-600x244.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"244\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Jones said the ballet asked the city for the additional funding on top of the $250,000 the ballet gets annually as part of a 10-year contract signed in late 2009.<\/p>\n<p>The request came up at the end of last week&#8217;s Council meeting. Mayor Nancy McFarlane asked the city to consider the extra funding for the remainder of this fiscal year and next.<\/p>\n<p>City Manager Russell Allen said there is only $40,000 left in the Council contingency budget, the account typically used to fund such requests.<\/p>\n<p>There is, however, about $700,000 remaining in the fuel contingency budget. Each year the city puts extra money away to handle increases in fuel prices.<\/p>\n<p>Because the year is half over and staff doesn&#8217;t anticipate any large gas price fluctuations, Allen recommended pulling money from that account.<\/p>\n<p>Allen said he would work the additional funding for the second year into next year&#8217;s budget.<\/p>\n<p>The allocation didn&#8217;t come without some discussion.<\/p>\n<p>Councilors Mary-Ann Baldwin and Eugene Weeks supported pulling money out of the fuel contingency this year and working the additional funding into next year\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n<p>Councilor Bonner Gaylord said he supports the ballet, but thought the organization should go through the Arts Commission grants process. He worried that the Council was setting a bad precedence by not following its own funding policies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m just concerned that it\u2019s moving away from our stated budget change to get the grants to go through the Arts Commission,\u201d Gaylord said.<\/p>\n<p>The Raleigh Arts Commission is administered by the city, but it is run by resident volunteers who evaluate the grant applications. The Commission makes a funding recommendations to Council.<\/p>\n<p>Any nonprofit organization headquartered in Raleigh can apply for funding. The city allocates $4.50 per capita each year for the program. This year about $1.85 million was budgeted.<\/p>\n<p>Councilor Thomas Crowder agreed with Gaylord. He suggested allowing the additional funding for this year, but having the ballet go through the Arts Commission next year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet\u2019s look at that next year and hopefully be successful through the grants process,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Crowder\u2019s motion was approved 5 to 3 with Baldwin, Weeks and Gaylord voting against.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Carolina Ballet asked the city for additional funding after losing a key donor. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24029,"featured_media":17001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,15,23],"tags":[1122,1121],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16992"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24029"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}