San Antonio Symphony News and Archive

Fixing musical budget will require 'fresh ideas'




By Russell Gold

from the San Antonio Express News 10/1/98



For years, the San Antonio Symphony has spent more than it raised, sloshing from season to season hip-deep in red ink.

But the symphony is not a business. It is a charity, dependent on donations to its annual fund.

The last time the books were balanced?

"It has been some time," said Charlie Lutz, chairman of the symphony board.

Yet Lutz has promised that by the 2002-03 season, the money raised each year will be enough to pay the cost of putting on that year's concerts.

"This will be a financially viable organization," he said.

That has been far from the case in the past.

When the symphony board decided not to open its 60th season last month, finances had reached the crisis point. Debts - including past-due payments to the pension fund - totalled $2.1 million. There was only $7,000 in the bank account.

The symphony's financial balance did not tumble overnight. According to several years' worth of tax filings, it appears to have declined slowly.

"It is amazing we have survived so long and with such a quality product," said Jean Robinson, a flutist and principal negotiator for the musicians.

To keep the music playing, the symphony has spent most of its endowment of more than $5 million in the past five years. Investment income plummeted from more than $400,000 in 1990 to less than $50,000 last year, creating a huge budget gap.

Revenues were shrinking as expenses grew.

In a move to boost ticket sales, the symphony increased its sales promotions efforts, which increased expenses.

A key component of the current plan to revive the symphony is to rebuild the endowment. The Kronkosky Foundation and local businesses have pledged $5 million over five years, although Lutz said $15 million would be a healthier amount.

"They are running at a deficit of about $1.5 million," said Ronald Bauers, an instructor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, who reviewed the symphony's budget as a consultant for the musicians.

"They have not been able to really raise enough revenue in order to continue operating in the manner they are used to operating," he said.

How can an institution that has historically been run at a deficit recover?

Rather than lowering expenses by scaling back the symphony, Lutz said the plan would seek to increase revenues by jacking up annual ticket revenues and donations by 3 percent to 5 percent a year over the next five years.

Lutz expressed confidence that "fresh ideas" would help accomplish this.

He emphasized the plan would produce a permanent solution, a departure from the symphony's history of problems and temporary fixes.

Previous financial troubles led to a musicians' strike in 1985. Mounting debt caused the cancellation of the 1987-88 season.



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