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Arts center slims down staffBy JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic © St. Petersburg Times published May 3, 2003
TAMPA - The budget-cutting ax swung this week at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. Ten full-time employees and one part-time employee were laid off in anticipation of the center's losing state and local government arts grants. "I really feel I need to be ahead of the curve," said TBPAC president Judith Lisi, who estimated savings gained from the cuts at $250,000 to $300,000 a year. The layoffs reduce the center's number of employees to 88. TBPAC stands to lose up to $700,000 this year if the Legislature makes the expected deep cuts in arts funding when a budget agreement is finally reached. The Hillsborough Tourist Development Council, which makes grants to TBPAC and other organizations from a hotel bed tax, is reducing funding to the center by as much as $150,000, Lisi said, because hotel occupancy is down. "We tried to spread the cuts across all departments," Lisi said. The layoffs included an assistant manager in the box office, a graphics artist, a production manager, employees in marketing and concessions, a part-time position in education and others. TBPAC also is cutting back on programing for 2003-04. Instead of two productions, Opera Tampa, underwritten by the center, will stage only one of its own, Turandot. A tour, a co-production with Orlando Opera and a recital by soprano Renee Fleming will fill out the opera schedule. There will be no American Music Festival, which had paid tribute to Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland and other artists in its first five years, and a play series was eliminated. Instead of an original cabaret show, such as this season's Satchmo, next season will have a one-man show, Fully Committed with John McGivern, on the Broadway series. "We'll have to save on programming by doing things that are less labor-intensive," Lisi said. Across the bay at Clearwater's Ruth Eckerd Hall, layoffs are not anticipated, but government cutbacks and declining contributions and ticket sales due to the souring economy are being felt. "We recognized toward the end of last calendar year we were going to face some shortfalls in projected revenues, and right now that (shortfall) is 3.7 percent," said Lex Poppens, director of marketing and communications. "We countered that with budget cuts in operations. So I would have to say we're operating at zero, and not in the red, but not necessarily in the black." Poppens said that the hall likely will delay filling vacant positions as they occur through attrition. "If it gets to the point where business is just completely horrible, any business has to consider (layoffs)," he said, "but that's not something we've discussed internally." - Staff writer Charlotte Sutton contributed to this report.  © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
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