Facility and resident companies working to find a solution
The Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts and its resident companies are scrambling to find a way to weather provincial funding cuts that amount to nearly half a million dollars.
The Epcor Centre usually receives around $2.5 million overall in provincial grants each year but the centre’s president Johann Zietsman says with the government’s decision to cut the annual Major Facilities Operating Grant the centre will be short the $420000 it had expected though the exact amount it received through the grant varied considerably from year to year.
Zietsman says the cut does not take effect until April 2014 giving the facility nearly one year to come up with funding alternatives cut expenses or convince the government to restore the grant.
In speaking with Fast Forward Weekly in March following the tabling of the provincial budget Culture Minister Heather Klimchuk said she was relieved her ministry’s budget had escaped relatively unscathed while others had been severely cut.
Zietsman says Klimchuk was “correct in terms of a sense of achievement in terms of certain elements of that budget” especially the provincial government’s decision to protect the arts by preserving the Alberta Foundation for the Arts which he calls “a huge huge plus for the arts community.”
However slashing the Major Facilities Operating Grant which pays maintenance costs for major facilities regardless of their specialty may potentially hurt Calgary’s art scene as much as a direct cut to the AFA would have.
Residents of the Epcor Centre include Alberta Theatre Projects the Calgary International Children’s Festival Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra CKUA Radio Downstage One Yellow Rabbit and Theatre Calgary.
Zietsman says some of the financial shortfall may be covered by cutting the services it offers to its resident companies and to Calgarians. The centre has also discussed increasing rent and facility fees but he says doing that is nobody’s first choice. He says the Epcor Centre and its resident companies have been working together since the budget was released in March to find other solutions that ensure everyone’s survival.
“[Residents are] as concerned about it as I am and concerned about the potential impact [the funding cut] might have on them” he says. “We are absolutely united in our efforts to find a way to deal with this.”
Tom McCabe of Theatre Calgary agrees the centre and its tenants must co-operate in order to find financial solutions that won’t jeopardize any members.
McCabe says that if rent is simply increased proportionately for each tenant to cover the $420000 Theatre Calgary will be on the hook for an extra $167000. He also says his theatre is doing well enough to absorb such a hike but smaller companies with smaller revenues can’t survive proportional rent increases that reflect what is essentially a 20 per cent rise in operating costs.
The executive director of One Yellow Rabbit Erin O’Connor agrees her performance company can’t pay more.
“Our strategic plan doesn’t afford any increased expenses especially at this level so any steep trajectory of higher operating costs would certainly have an impact on our fiscal health and viability long-term” she says.
O’Connor’s problem is compounded by the provincial government’s decision this year to eliminate the Community Spirit Donation program which contributed up to $25000 annually to small non-profits. It was money smaller performance groups relied on.
Simon Mallett the artistic director of Downstage says losing the Community Spirit funding may be even more debilitating than the problems he and his associates at the Epcor are facing from the elimination of the operating grant.
“For us that’s the more significant missing piece of the pie than whatever the ramifications of the operating [grant] will be. That being said that’s just because we’re so small” says Mallett.
Mallett says that Downstage now 10 years old had just reached a point where fundraising efforts could focus on building rather than surviving. Being forced again to merely hold on is discouraging.
“But we’ve weathered worse storms before as a company” he says. “The biggest thing is that the ecology of the Epcor Centre as a whole has to take top priority and that includes the Epcor Centre itself as well as all of the resident companies…. No one is just looking out for themselves everyone is trying to come up with an arrangement that is going to be in everyone’s best interest.”
McCabe agrees: “It’s fine to be critical of the government for cutting it but on the other hand they’re trying to do what the citizens want them to do and that’s balance the budget. There’s going to be pain everywhere. They’re cutting in education they’re cutting health care they’re cutting everywhere. And should arts be exempt? Probably not. Having said that we’re trying to figure some innovative ways to look after it and we haven’t got the answers yet.”
