Historic sites targeted for cuts
‘Closings would deal blow to education’
FREMONT, North Carolina, April 15, (AP): Agroup of second-graders parked on century-old benches in a schoolhouse from another time pounded Krista Thompson with questions about how kids who once occupied those seats lived. She answered with patience.
“It’s just great for them to come out and see what it was like, because they really have no idea, and they have so many questions,” she said. Thompson, a Pikeville resident and home-school parent, said she started volunteering at the Gov Charles B. Aycock Birthplace outside Fremont seven years ago and was first drawn there when she brought her own kids.
If the North Carolina General Assembly includes the recommendation of Gov Pat McCrory in its two-year budget starting July 1, Aycock and four other historic sites across the state would close to the general public, keeping just enough staff to maintain buildings and grounds. McCrory estimates the state could save $500,000 a year from shutting down the Aycock Birthplace in Fremont, the Polk Memorial in Pineville, the Vance Birthplace in Weaverville, House in the Horshoe in Sanford and the Mountain Gateway Museum in Old Fort. McCrory also recommended rolling back hours across the state’s 20 other historic sites to five days a week, for a total estimated savings of $650,000 a year.
The Aycock site honors the “education governor,” Charles Aycock. He is famous for building more than 600 schools in his single term from 1901 to 1905 but has been attacked in recent years as a white supremacist. The 18-acre site featuring a 19th century school house and Aycock’s boyhood home shares one quality with the other places eyed for closure: its visitation numbers rank near the bottom of all historic sites. Its 11,275 visitors in the 2011 fiscal year ranked second-worst, and attendance the next year wasn’t much better.
Prioritize
When McCrory told state agencies to cut budgets by 2 percent, the department had to prioritize after years of cuts, said Keith Hardison, director of the Division of State Historic Sites and Properties. The division has suffered cuts of about 25 percent over the past three years, and its approximately $7 million budget this year doesn’t include many bells and whistles, Hardison said.
With the exception of a couple of small things that we indeed offered up as options, there’s literally nothing left (to cut) but bodies, and with that, buildings,” he said. Hardison added that he hopes to reopen the sites when the budget picture improves if they’re not spared by the legislature this year.
This isn’t the first time historic sites have been targeted for cuts. A 2012 report explored combining staff members at sites and other cost-saving measures.
Those recommendations haven’t happened because the Department of Cultural Resources said they weren’t feasible or wouldn’t save as much money as predicted. The department also pointed out that the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer has seen a 26 percent drop in visitation since it started charging for admission in 2011.
Lawmakers representing districts that are home to the historic sites that made the list say they remain hopeful they can eliminate or at least blunt the cuts.
“We definitely want to be able to keep the Aycock Birthplace open to the citizens and the public. There’s value there,” said Rep John Bell, R-Wayne. “It’s on our radar and it’s a concern, but we hope we can work something out in the General Assembly.”
Sen Daniel Clodfelter, DMecklenburg, stressed that the budget-writing process still has a long way to go, and the cuts are just recommendations for now.
“These are not budget-busting items, and I’ve heard from an awful lot of folks, especially school folks who use these historic sites as teaching and learning opportunities to supplement programs in the school,” he said. “I consider them not just nice little things to have, but they are really integral parts of the education program for kids.”