The Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation’s Board of Trustees had their semi-annual meeting this week during which they discussed a number of topics, including the organization’s budget.
The foundation is a state education agency that oversees Jamestown Settlement and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown, said Tracy Perkins, spokeswoman for the foundation. Its operating budget in 2019-2020 was $19.5 million, with general funds appropriated by the General Assembly comprising 55.7 percent of the operating budget.
Non-general funds, which are mostly admissions revenue, account for 44.3 percent of the operating budget.
During the meeting, the board discussed the budget for the upcoming fiscal year of 2021 to 2022.
When looking at the budget, board members consider the Four-Year Action Plan which was adopted in 2018. The plan helps staff to monitor major fluctuations in the general and non-general fund and the agency’s ability to move forward with the plan, according to documents from the foundation.
Board members had previously discussed the foundation’s budget during the meeting in May, where items were reviewed and prioritized by estimated financial resources that were needed to implement major plans. Following the meeting in May, the executive and finance committees met in September and further reviewed the program and cost estimates.
After the September meeting, the committees submitted two budget amendments for Gov. Ralph Northam’s consideration.
The first is an amendment in marketing and tourism promotion that requests $453,000 to provide ongoing support for “key marketing strategies,” according to documents. Those strategies include cooperative marketing initiatives, marketing to national tour and student groups, special exhibition marketing and paid advertising.
The goal of the advertising is to address reduced regional and partner marketing spending which has taken a toll on visitation and non-general revenue.
In the amendment, it states that $45,000 of the requested funds would be spent on marketing website development. This means it will be spent on an outside website consultant who will research tourism and marketing design to propose practices and solutions for updating the current website.
The second amendment requests $716,300 in education services and practices to maintain the foundation’s current educational programs. According to documents, this includes educational outreach and digital distance learning as well, which will help the foundation meet tourism demand from state and national schools.
Each year, $15,000 will go to partnership development which supports annual workshops and partnerships with other educational organizations.
The amendment shows that $123,000 in 2021 and $77,000 of the requested funds will be used for distance learning, which supports equipment and studio expansion, program development for nationwide schools and international program promotion.
The Living History program will receive $19,100 over the course of the fiscal year to provide funds to buy supplies required to “provide visitors and students with an authentic and engaging experience,” according to documents.
The Academic Program Development will receive requested funds of $139,000 to support the annual academic conference, expand museum visibility and profile while creating a fee-based revenue system that will offset expenditures.
Collection Digital Asset Management will potentially receive $201,000 to support acquiring a new database system which would host the collection of more than 230,000 digitized artifacts. This would replace the existing system and funding includes a part time digital asset collection manager.
Lastly, the budget would include potentially $127,200 in requested funds for the Commemoration Legacy Project Manager position, which would be a part-time position that helps identify key commemorative programs that are deemed worthy of continuation because of their potential lasting impact on state education, tourism and heritage.
