Virginia to fund Museum of the Confederacy

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Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine says he will approve a $400,000 amendment that would fund the cash-strapped Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, ending its recent struggle to secure state assistance.

The cash infusion will help cover the museum's 2007-08 general operating budget, which includes staffing. The annual price tag to run the museum is estimated at $2.1 million.

Museum officials hope that a combination of budget cuts and emergency fundraising efforts will help them stay in the black for the fiscal year that ends in June.

"We're really happy that the state is helping us out," said Megan Miller, the museum's director of communications. "We're glad they have decided to take some of the responsibility for our situation. ... This money from the General Assembly, that will allow us to break even [next fiscal year]. But I don't know what that is going to mean for the future."

The state had been staying out of the museum's finances, opting instead to focus on transportation and eminent domain.

"It just has been one of those things that has not been a top priority," said Sen. Charles R. Hawkins, Campbell County Republican who pushed for the additional funding for the museum. "Richmond looked at the state for its response and the state looked at Richmond, and in the process, it fell through the cracks."

Meanwhile, museum officials have struggled to raise enough money to maintain its financial health. Ms. Miller said the museum had a debt of about $475,000, as of June.

In August, officials were forced to cut their budget by closing the museum one day a week and trimming staff. Officials also began considering moving the largest collection of Confederate memorabilia to another locality, such as Lexington, Va., and possibly dropping the word "Confederacy" from the museum's name.

"They want to stay in Richmond, and we want them to stay in Richmond," said Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder, a Democrat and the nation's first black elected governor. "The problem is we don't have money to give them. ... The question is what will it take for them to stay in Richmond?"

The consideration to rename the museum came after a group of historians, preservationists and grant writers suggested the change because the word "Confederacy" carried "enormous, intransigent and negative intellectual baggage with many."