In Friday’s (3/5) Columbus Dispatch, Jeffrey Sheban reports, “To help keep the financially strapped Columbus Symphony afloat, musicians have agreed to wage concessions worth $1.1 million this year and next. As part of a restructuring announced yesterday, the symphony also said it wants to combine administrative functions with those of the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts, potentially eliminating as many as 18 symphony staff positions and saving an additional $500,000 annually. The moves are intended to reduce expenses in the 2010-11 season to $7.5 million—down from $9 million this season—and help chip away at an estimated $500,000 deficit in the current fiscal year, which ends Aug. 31. … Musicians voted last weekend to revise their contract, which runs through the 2010-11 season. Forty-six full-time members agreed to give up two weeks of paid vacation time this year, for a savings of $120,000, while accepting a 23 percent pay cut in the fiscal year starting Sept. 1, saving the orchestra $1 million. … Armed with the orchestra’s latest cost-cutting plans, [President and CEO Roland] Valliere and board chairman Martin Inglis will be calling on corporate donors to help close the current-season budget gap, which last month reached as high as $1.5million.”
Posted March 5, 2010
