E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Send E-mail
Reprint story
Journal North: Home | Sports | Opinion | Obits | Entertainment
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Director of 400th Laid Off
By Kiera Hay
Journal Staff Writer
The executive director of the nonprofit tasked with producing Santa Fe's 400th anniversary commemoration has been given a pink slip, a casualty of plans to reduce the cash-strapped organization's budget by about 75 percent.
Two other Santa Fe 400th Anniversary Inc. staffers will also be laid off — meaning about half the nonprofit's workforce is on the way out. Outside contracts for public relations and marketing, as well as national-level fundraising, are also being eliminated.
"It's a sign of the times," Santa Fe 400th chair Maurice Bonal said.
"My business is downsizing, everyone's business is downsizing. We just adjust accordingly. It's not rocket science."
Altogether, the changes will reduce Santa Fe 400th's monthly expenses from $41,000 to around $10,000, according to Bonal.
Executive director Libby Dover — an events producer recruited from Seattle a little over a year ago after a national search — will work her last day Nov. 12, as will the nonprofit's accountant and local fundraiser. Those remaining — an executive coordinator, events coordinator and administrative assistant — will have their hours cut.
Future events, which tentatively include cinema and lecture series and a theatrical production aimed at children, will be contracted out to individual producers, Bonal said, though that's likely to be several months down the road.
"Talent is talent ... I have no regrets of hiring Libby. She was extremely qualified. We can't afford her," he said.
The Santa Fe 400th Anniversary's board of directors agreed to "curtail the budget" at a meeting Thursday night, but Bonal said planning the cuts has been in the works for some time. More budget cuts could be announced in the coming weeks.
Dover was disappointed, though pragmatic, about her firing on Friday.
"From the moment this organization started looking ahead we never really had the funding for 2010. It was always a possibility if the funding didn't come in from some source," she said.
She pointed out that the event's estimated budget was much higher — about $7 or $8 million — when she was given a contract for $10,000 a month. At one point, organizers planned for an $11 million budget.
"When you have about $750,000 it's a totally different position," she acknowledged.
It's been a troubled road for Santa Fe's 400th Anniversary effort, which wasn't helped by delays at City Hall in the initial planning. Work didn't begin in earnest until early 2007, and organizers had less than $100,000 in hand.
Dover said Santa Fe 400th's funding has been "a constant guessing game," and that the nonprofit's single biggest issue over the past year has been "not knowing what's coming in the door."
"I think, all in all, if we'd known at the end of the day that our entire budget was $1.5 million, then we would have done things differently," she said.
Still, she said she was proud of the group's accomplishments, including Viva! Santa Fe, a two-day festival held in early September.
"Our staff worked an average of 70, 80 hours a week during the summer to make Viva happen," she said.
Earlier this week Santa Fe 400th asked the City Council to approve an emergency infusion of $750,000, a potentially life-saving request grudgingly endorsed on Monday by the council's Finance Committee.
The bulk of the money, Dover told councilors, would be used to pay for overhead expenses, which in turn will provide a "foundation" for the nonprofit to maintain its existence and continue fundraising.
Bonal, when asked Friday where the 400th anniversary commemoration goes from here, responded that, "It's all a function of money."
"We understand the crisis the city is in, we understand the state of New Mexico, the state of the nation. Everybody is downsizing. We're no different. We've been hit by the economy as hard or harder than anyone else," he said.
Without the $750,000, slated to go before the entire City Council for approval Oct. 28, Santa Fe 400th will likely find itself in the position of essentially having to close shop completely. Bonal appeared confident that getting the money won't be a problem, however.
"The mayor and council are committed to the 400th anniversary. It's just a function of how big," he said.
He added, "We haven't lost our vision, our focus or our goals. We're committed to carrying out the function we started off with: commemorating Santa Fe's 400th anniversary as best we can with what we've got."
As for Dover, she said she was unsure about her next step, though held open the possibility of bidding to produce one of the 400th events down the road.
"I'm just processing it right now. I'm planning on staying in Santa Fe and we'll see," she said.
You also can send comments via our comment form
|
|
