Flagship Cal State Museum in Perilous Waters : Art: A task force urges that the facility be phased out by 1993 as part of a solution to Long Beach campus’s budget crunch.

A Cal State Long Beach task force charged with finding possible solutions to the university’s budgetary crisis has recommended that its illustrious University Art Museum reduce its budget 25% during the 1991-92 school year and phase out by June, 1993.

Faced with trimming the university’s $154-million budget by about $14 million--based on a state budget that projected a $7-billion deficit--the Resource Planning Task Force has recommended cuts that average 10% campus-wide. Except for a few sports programs that already have been eliminated or are in jeopardy, the museum is the only program marked for demise.

Widely recognized as the flagship gallery of the California State University system, the museum has distinguished itself by establishing a first-rate program of exhibitions and lectures, building a collection of contemporary art and winning financial support from public and private agencies. It is the only museum in the 20-campus, 370,000-student system to be accredited by the American Assn. of Museums.

Unlike the typical CSU gallery that struggles along on an annual budget of $15,000 to $30,000 plus salaries, the museum at Cal State Long Beach has a 1990-91 budget of $1.2 million--largely raised by the museum itself. Since it was established in 1980, the museum has become a powerhouse in a league with top UC galleries and museums, such as those at UCLA and UC Berkeley. But now it appears that the museum may become a victim of its own success.

University President Curtis L. McCray acknowledged that the University Art Museum is “a terrific asset that has played an important role on campus and in the community.” The advisory is “only a recommendation,” he cautioned. Instead of closing the museum, McCray said he wants to explore the possibility of turning it into a privately funded entity. He plans to appoint a committee in about a week to study ways to privatize the museum.

The museum already pays for its programs with grants and gifts, but salaries and a small portion of operating funds--amounting to $388,328 in 1990-91--come from the general fund. In light of the university’s fiscal plight, McCray said the museum probably should not continue to derive support from the general fund, which is intended for instructional purposes. Although the museum provides instruction in art history and appreciation, he said, when dollars get tight the money is desperately needed for other purposes.

Museum supporters applaud the notion of creating a privately endowed museum but doubt that private funds will be available for salaries in a state institution and contend that the museum cannot survive further belt-tightening while an alternate means of support is explored. “Private endowment is a goal that everyone aspires to, but it’s only a goal and not a solution to tomorrow’s problems,” said museum director Constance W. Glenn. Having already lost 33% of its budget and having reduced its full-time staff from 14 to six in the last two years while the university has wrestled with fiscal problems, the museum needs help immediately, she said.

If funds are cut more than 5% and if one more staff position is lost, the museum will not be able to administer some 14 grant programs that are active or pending, she said. Grants will have to be returned or renegotiated and pending offers must be refused. If that should happen, the museum would be discredited and it could take decades to rebuild the confidence of grant-making agencies and re-establish eligibility, she said.

“If we don’t know where we stand in 10 days, we will lose the Rosenquist graphic retrospective,” Glenn said, referring to a planned exhibition of graphic works by Pop artist James Rosenquist that is slated to travel to 10 museums in the United States and Canada. “By July 1, we will lose $193,729 in exhibition development funding from the Knight Foundation if we don’t have enough staff to develop ‘Machine Language: Art in the Information Age,’ ” she said of a major exhibition that the museum plans to organize and send on a national tour.

“We have less than two weeks to accept the conditions of our forthcoming $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for our Centric program,” Glenn said. The Centric exhibition program is a forum for experimental work by young artists which has helped to launch careers or provide West Coast exposure for such well known artists as Lorna Simpson, Francesco Clemente, Elizabeth Murray, Donald Sultan and Susan Rothenberg.

“Deadlines come and go, and we have to honor them,” Glenn said, explaining that the university accepted many current grants when the museum had a larger budget and staff. “Endowment plans are a wonderful thing, but if the museum doesn’t live up to its legal, ethical and financial commitments now, there will be no museum to endow,” she said.

Glenn is a professor whose tenure at the university is not threatened, but she voiced concern about former museum staffers whose positions have been cut during the last two years and present employees who wonder how long their jobs will last. “It’s time to provide a commitment to these individuals who have labored so long to create a center of quality that the university said it wanted,” she said.

In discussing the possibility of privatizing the museum, McCray cited the example of public radio station KLON-FM, which has gradually decreased its percentage of university support and will get no university funds next year.

But some arts administrators question the feasibility of endowing a private museum on campus, particularly one that was founded as a state agency. “It’s always easy to assume that something as sexy as the University Art Museum could find private funding, but it is far more difficult to raise money for salaries and light bulbs than for exhibitions,” said Romalyn Tilghman, Pacific Rim regional representative for the National Endowment for the Arts.

The University Art Museum Contemporary Council, a museum support group, has launched a campaign to save the museum. In letters sent to artists, donors and friends of the museum, the council has raised legal issues about the university’s obligation to care for its collection and honor its agreement to permanently maintain and operate the museum as a university facility. New York artists Eric Fischl and April Gornik, among others, have written to McCray expressing concern about their works in the museum’s collection.

McCray said that he had received letters in support of the museum and that he hoped the writers would join his effort to find private funds for the museum.

Putting the problem in perspective, McCray noted that other programs have been targeted for budgetary reductions--the Center for Public Policy, 13%; the Center for International Education, 15%; sports and recreation, 15%--and that university television is expected to transfer its costs from the general fund. The university has closed out 506 faculty positions and 249 staff positions through layoffs and attrition.

The fiscal crisis is severe, Glenn and other museum supporters agree, but they argue that the museum is not a luxury and that the university should preserve its pinnacles of excellence in economic hard times. “I recognize the extremity of the budget crisis. However, decisions about programs of quality have to be made and priorities have to be set. What this museum gives to the university and the community far outweighs what it costs,” Glenn said.

“The 25% cut in our budget that is proposed for next year isn’t a finger in the dike of the university’s $14-million budgetary problem. The $97,000 that they want to take away from us next year will buy about a professor and a half, but it will cost the university the only program for which it is known worldwide. There are no important universities without museum programs,” she said.