An emergency fundraising meeting for the Tom Thomson Art Gallery was called off this morning soon after it had been scheduled to start.
Despite issuing a public notice for the meeting, organizers had not ensured they would have a quorum. As too few members of the City of Owen Sound’s Tom Thomson Art Gallery Advisory Committee were able to attend the meeting on short notice, those who did were unable to proceed.
The City issued a public notice for the meeting on October 23. The meeting was to be open for the public to observe but not participate. It was not being live-streamed or recorded.
The TTAG Advisory Committee consists of six members of the public and Councilors Melanie Middlebro and Brock Hamley.
Despite a small group of supporters’ ongoing push for a $16+ million gallery expansion, the Tom Thomson Art Gallery has struggled for broader community support. Steadily rising expenses, stagnant revenue, and complaints about lack of storage space for the growing collection have some asking why Council isn’t directing the TOM to pare back expenses and improve its use of the existing space.
“Is it reasonable to spend $16 million to create event spaces that are projected to bring in a revenue of $14,000 a year?” Middlebro questioned fellow Council members in March.
Middlebro also questioned whether it is reasonable to spend $16 million to add storage capacity of 1000 square feet, and to expand a facility that saw 14,000 total visitors last year.
City staff are pulling out all the stops to make the case for increased funding for the gallery, having rolled Tourism Services into the gallery. Visits are up, staff insist, despite confusion among them about who is actually being counted as a visitor.
The gallery was operating at a -$52,146 deficit as of Director Aidan Ware’s September 4 report to Council. The gallery had fundraised $36,828 YTD plus received $121,000 in provincial and federal funding at that time. The TOM’s last fundraising effort for 2024 came up -$24,456 short of its goals.
With two months left in the fiscal year, Ware was to present financials at the special meeting showing that General Revenue is currently $36,000 short of the gallery’s $104,000 projection for 2024.
The gallery’s finances have been a point of contention for many community members since the gallery tried unsuccessfully to separate from the City and had to get a $617,000+ taxpayer-funded bailout in 2017.
In 2017, Council passed a motion that “Any deficit from Art Gallery operations in 2017 will be recouped from City funding of the Art Gallery over the next ten years.” City funding for the TTAG has nearly doubled in the seven years since.
In response to questions from The Owen Sound Current and our request for an accounting of the gallery’s debt repayment to taxpayers, Tim Simmonds, City Manager, provided the following statement:
“Each year, the gallery was to repay $50,000, and in those years that the gallery generated a surplus, those additional funds were put toward the deficit.
Payments were as follows:
2018: $90,662
2019: $85,000
2020: $50,000
2021: $50,000
2022: $85,000
2023: $50,000
In April, Council approved a suggestion from the City’s Director of Corporate Services that $122,000 from Owen Sound’s net year-end surplus be applied to the TTAG’s 2016-17 debt repayment. This essentially wiped the slate clean of the previous mishandling of public funds four years early, paving the way for the current push for expansion funding.
Last year, the TTAG’s total budget surpassed $859,000 – $384,320 of that funded by grants and the gallery’s revenue-producing activities and $474,999.96 funded by City of Owen Sound taxpayers.
In other words, the TOM was over 55% supported by taxpayers last year.
It is unclear how the 2023 allocation of $50,000 from the TOM’s budget to the City represents any sort of reparation or reconciliation for taxpayers, who were already footing the bulk of the TOM’s budget, funded another $122,000 from the City’s surplus, and received a 2.58% tax levy increase, as well.
According to the Director’s report, the gallery is expected to generate less revenue this year, at $360,606.00, and has produced $304,565.04 to date.
That revenue forecast is $325,730 less than the gallery’s $686,336 projected operating costs for 2024, which includes over $600,000 in wages and benefits.