“The Minnesota Orchestra reported Wednesday its third consecutive year of balanced budgets,” reports Jenna Ross in Wednesday’s (11/29) Star Tribune (Minneapolis). “Orchestra leaders are hoping that financial stability will help lure a new CEO. The orchestra announced Wednesday a search to replace Kevin Smith, the orchestra’s president and CEO, who has long planned to retire in August 2018. Smith came out of retirement in 2014, at age 63, to rebuild the state’s largest performing arts organization after a bitter, 16-month lockout. At its annual meeting Wednesday evening, Smith announced a balanced budget for fiscal year 2017. Net assets were up, debt was down [with] a surplus of about $79,000 on its $32.6 million operating budget…. Earned revenue for the year, which ended Aug. 31, totaled $10.5 million … nearly $1 million more than the previous year…. Expenses rose to $32.6 million for fiscal 2017, up from $31.7 million the year before. The nonprofit used $3.8 million from endowments and trusts to help balance the budget. A few years after renovating Orchestra Hall, revenue from rentals and food and beverage sales exceeded $1.5 million, 19 percent more than in fiscal year 2016…. The orchestra also paid off $5.6 million in debt related to the hall’s renovation.”
Posted November 30, 2017
Pictured: Minnesota Orchestra President and CEO Kevin Smith. Photo by Carlos Gonzalez
