Mahara Gallery Trust Board Chairman Gordon Shroff says that adequate operational funding for the new Gallery is in place for the coming financial year while the Gallery Board and Kāpiti Coast District Council are engaged in constructive discussions on longer term funding to be embedded in the Council’s Long Term Plan.
He says the Gallery Board’s and Council’s principal current focus is completing the remaining work around the new Gallery so that it can meet a projected opening date of 28 October.
Gordon Shroff said he was confident that this focus would not be affected by recent media coverage of an internal review of Council processes resulting in Councillors being apparently unaware of the full extent of the Council’s commitment to operational funding,
‘For those unfamiliar with the language of budgets, operational funding means the money to pay staff and running costs including the likes of insurance and utilities such as the all-important equipment which controls temperature and humidity in the new Gallery,’ he said.
‘The media reporting has been accurate in recording the Council’s oversight in not making adequate provision in its Long Term Plan for operational funding.
However, it is less informative in respect of the action being taken to deal with the funding issue between now and the adoption of the Council’s new Long Term Plan for 2024–25 and beyond.
It only briefly refers to the Council-commissioned report by Richard Arlidge, an independent expert on galleries and museums whose brief was to provide advice on what staffing would be required for the new Gallery and what the likely financial implications would be.
Applying the Reserve Bank’s inflation adjuster for the intervening years confirms that his figure accords very closely with the Trust’s current-day estimate.
Regrettably, in the intervening years, the Arlidge Report has been overlooked in determining financial provision in the Long Term Plan for the Gallery’s ongoing staffing needs.
I am happy to report that in our discussions with the Council we have agreed on adequate funding, in addition to our current allocation, to enable the Gallery to operate in a sustainable and professional manner during the coming financial year, 2023–24.
For the longer term the Trust and the Council are engaged in constructive discussions about overall funding requirements and the structuring of our respective contributions with the aim of getting full benefit for Kāpiti ratepayers and visitors from our joint investment in the new cultural facility.
While these discussions proceed, we are working with the Council’s staff to prepare the new Gallery for opening. The Council has told us that some quite complex landscaping and exterior site work around the exterior of the gallery will take some time to complete.
We still have work to do reoccupying the building, testing the new and much more sophisticated systems and curating and setting up the four opening exhibitions in the new building.’
‘We have agreed with Council that we will aim for an opening date for the new Gallery of Saturday 28 October,’ said Mr Shroff.
The Mahara Gallery Redevelopment Project has been a project undertaken in partnership by Kāpiti Coast District Council, The Mahara Gallery Trust Board and the Field Collection Trust.
While the Mahara Gallery Trust Board raised two thirds of the project cost, the Council owns the land on which the new Gallery is built and the building itself.