by Keith L. Martin | Staff Writer
Steeped in the past, the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick is taking a hard look at its financial present and future.
George Wunderlich, the museum’s executive director, said the downtown repository of exhibits and artifacts is among many nonprofits dealing with a decrease in national and state grants. The result in Frederick is keeping history alive with a ‘‘relatively flat budget,” according to Wunderlich.
National grants, such as those through the Institute of Museum and Library Services, have been redirected to help museums in the Gulf Coast recover from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and state grants, such as those through the Maryland Historic Trust, are no longer to be used for general operation, often requiring a new project and matching funds from another source, Wunderlich said.
‘‘How can I ‘advance’ my museum when I’m dealing with paying the lighting bill, cleaning expenses and other day-to-day items?” he said. ‘‘... If museums in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and others suffered great damage, are you going to give me money for new light bulbs or grant it to them to save priceless artifacts? It’s immoral to support me when they have that need, I think.”
Add to the lack of grant funding a decrease in private donations and more competition among museums and Wunderlich said ‘‘we are seeing a bit of stagnation in our budget process ... that stresses our staff.”
The seven full-time staff members, including Wunderlich, receive no health or dental insurance, no day care, a ‘‘simple IRA,” and no guaranteed annual raises. The result is the recent loss of two full-time employees who the director said could not make ends meet working at the museum. Losing staff is an increasing reality in the museum industry Wunderlich said, given employees’ master’s degree level of education.
Though challenged ‘‘to find a way to present a quality product while keeping costs down,” Wunderlich said the museum has no plans to close its doors and is instead seeking new avenues to bring in revenue.
‘‘The possibility [of closing] has never come up,” said Wunderlich, the director since 2003. ‘‘We are firmly based in Frederick and determined to stay here.”
The museum operates on a $700,000 annual budget, according to Wunderlich, made up of various sources, including city and county donations. The museum also draws interest from a savings account (a $2 million endowment).
According to an e-mail from county budget officer Mike Gastley, the county has contributed $10,000 to the museum in the last five fiscal years. The museum also applies for benefits from the hotel⁄motel tax available through the Tourism Council of Frederick County that Wunderlich said is about $12,000 annually.
The City of Frederick has allocated $25,000 per year to the museum for the last four fiscal years, according to Budget Director Gerry Kolbfleisch. The museum pays the city $1 annually for rent and reimburses the city for utilities that exceed $8,400, he said in an e-mail to The Gazette. It has occupied the space on East Patrick Street since 1994.
Alderman C. Paul Smith (R), the city’s liaison to the museum’s board of directors, said as a valuable resource to Frederick, the museum is ‘‘in the position where they probably need additional funds from the city and we need to make that case immediately.”
With the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War coming in 2009, Smith said it is crucial that the museum remain in operation as it is the hub of local activity between Gettysburg, Harper’s Ferry and Antietam.
‘‘The museum is a real economic engine and asset to the city,” Smith said. ‘‘I hate to see it struggle.”
Smith said while he’d like to see more Frederick County residents bequest money to the museum, he also plans to lobby his colleagues on the Frederick Board of Aldermen to possibly double their funding to $50,000 each year for two to four years. He also hopes the county will consider increasing its donation as well.
In the meantime, the museum has been proactive in working to increase revenue, including a visit by Wunderlich to downtown Frederick merchants, ‘‘telling them I don’t want your money, I want to pick your brain,” he said.
The executive director met with several shop owners about how to improve the look of the museum shop storefront, based on their experiences and the results so far have been so good. Wunderlich says sales traditionally bring in $65,000 to $70,000 per year and so far, the museum in on target to see a 15-20 percent increase at the end of the year.
The museum is also working to increase what Wunderlich calls ‘‘our greatest secret,” leadership and medical training done in Frederick for the federal government and other businesses using lessons learned in the Civil War.
Wunderlich said the program has taught people from the Department of Defense to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about management, communications and logistics lessons gained nearly 150 years ago, aside from the medical training to the military.
‘‘We still use medical discoveries and surgical procedures used on Civil War battlefields, whether it is in an ambulance in Myersville or in Iraq,” he said. ‘‘We are still used to save lives. We are not just about the dusty past, but the very real present .... The lessons learned here save peoples’ lives.”
