As conversations around school funding continue, one facility that has been mostly spared from budget talks in recent years is the Sitka Performing Arts Center. For the last several years, a local nonprofit has been managing the PAC for the Sitka School District for free. Now they’re asking for an annual fee in order to keep up with the cost of running the facility.

The Sitka Performing Arts Center was built in 2008. For the first decade, the school district funded its operation. Then, in 2019, with the school district facing a budget shortfall, the city, school district and Alaska Arts Southeast, an arm of the Sitka Fine Arts Camp that had been contracted to provide a technical director and custodial services for the facility, entered into a cooperative agreement to provide those services for free. The city covered utilities, the schools covered heating and maintenance, and the fine arts camp managed the facility. They didn’t take a fee to manage it, just revenue from rentals. 

That contract is up this summer- and when the groups came back to the table to renegotiate, the Fine Arts Camp notified the city that they’d need $125,000 a year from the city to continue managing the PAC.

“The main objective is to serve our school kids through the music programs, theater programs, assemblies, so forth and so on,” said Roger Schmidt, executive director of SFAC. “I think we [all] ran through a big hard patch, financially, in Sitka, and I think we were hoping that this was a stopgap, and not the future of our organization into perpetuity to run it at cost.”

The fine arts camp’s business director, Drew Sherman, broke things down by the dollar. 

“In fiscal year ‘23…we spent $230,000 to run the pack, and the revenue from rentals, and all our ticket sales for all the shows that we put on was around $80,000,” Sherman said. “So it’s about a $150,000 gap. That kind of explains why we want to kind of break even and get these funds to continue to support and update the facility.”

Planning Director Amy Ainslie wanted direction from the assembly on how to move forward with drafting a “request for proposals” or RFP for managing the PAC, and asked whether the assembly also wanted an estimate of what it would cost the city, should they pivot to managing the PAC in-house. Assembly member Thor Christianson asked if Ainslie thought a city managed PAC could be more cost effective. 

“I’m not going to hold you to anything necessarily, but do you see any scenario where it would cost less than $125,000?” Christianson asked Ainslie.

“I’m gonna ballpark and say probably not,” Ainslie responded, to which Christianson replied, “That’s what I thought.”

There wasn’t much appetite for a city-managed PAC at the assembly table. Several assembly members expressed appreciation and interest in continuing to work with the fine arts camp, who have specialized knowledge in how to direct the facility. Assembly member Tim Pike recalled being at school board meetings when the groups negotiated the current agreement- the district wanted the city to take over the PAC because it was costing them a quarter million a year to operate.

“Alaska Arts Southeast stepped up to help us make sure that this three piece puzzle would actually function,” Pike said. “Because, you know, I don’t believe that that facility is ever going to make money to pay for itself…it’s a valuable resource in our community. But it’s not…it’s not a moneymaker.”  

Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz said he wanted city staff to draft an RFP with clear expectations about who is responsible for maintenance of the building, which he said would be more important as the building ages. 

“I think the first 15 years of building operation are pretty easy, and I think that after 15 years is about when it starts to break,” Eisenbeisz said. “And so that’s why it was such a large concern to me. We may not have anything in the first five, but we may after that, so I think it’s a it’s a large point that I definitely want worked out as we go forward.”

The assembly agreed that they wanted city staff to draft a request for proposals so Alaska Arts Southeast and other interested organizations could submit competitive bids for managing the PAC. That will come before the assembly at a future meeting.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to clarify the history of the Performing Arts Center’s relationship with the school district and how the most recent PAC management contract was negotiated.