San Antonio Symphony News and Archive

Symphony still short of funds




From the San Antonio Express-News 5/25/2000

By Mike Greenberg



One week from the deadline, the San Antonio Symphony remains $480,000 short of breaking even for the current season and qualifying for the $1.2 million in stabilization gifts.

The loss of those funds would be "staggering to this organization" and could not be absorbed "without restructuring the orchestra" said John Binkley, the symphony's executive director.

"We have to end in the black. We have no choice," he added.

When the symphony last courted bankruptcy, in 1998, 16 businesses and the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation offered to increase their gifts by $1 million a year over five years.

Each installment, however, was contingent on the symphony's ending each fiscal year without a deficit. An additional $200,000 annual Kronkosky gift also depends on black ink. The symphony's fiscal year ends next's Wednesday.

The stabilization package was meant to allow the symphony to close out its accumulated debt, start rebuilding an endowment and stop the practice of using advance ticket sales to pay for current operations.

The last of the accumulated debt, which stood at $2.1 million in 1998, was paid off this year.

Binkley said the symphony was meeting its $7 million budget target, and ticket sales were meeting expectations, but several categories of giving by individuals and corporations had fallen well short of his projections.

In late March of last year, one anonymous gift of $1 million closed an anticipated gap between revenues and expenses. Binkley said a few individuals are capable of meeting the need this year, as well.

Binkley is especially concerned that a new deficit would jeoparize the symphony's plan to rebuild a $25 million endowment.

The income from such an endowment would close what has become an annual shortfall in revenue from sales and donations.



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