Society seeks transfer of some sites

The financial burden of maintaining the sites is great.

COLUMBUS (AP) — The Ohio Historical Society wants to unload one-third of the sites that it operates to ease the cost of maintaining its roster.

The society, a nonprofit group that gets most of its money from the state, operates 60 historical sites around the state, but it wants to transfer ownership of 20 of them to local preservation groups or governments.

Its 60 sites — most run with the help of local groups — are more than any other state operates. However, the financial burden of maintaining the sites is great.

For example, the brick wall that lines the backyard of the Our House museum in Gallipolis is falling down, and repairing it will cost $37,000.

The society is under contract with the state to maintain the sites. Of its $26.5 million budget this year, $17.4 million comes from taxpayers.

The society has a list of $100 million in maintenance projects — leaky roofs, crumbling brick walls, outdated heating and cooling systems — at the 60 sites. About $4 million in state funding this fiscal year is set aside for those projects.

The 20 sites that the society wants to spin off were chosen because their historical importance primarily is local, Executive Director William Laidlaw said.

“There’s a lot of passion for these sites in the various towns that they’re located in,” he said.

The nonpartisan Legislative Service Commission is talking to groups that operate the 20 properties and is studying whether tax credits to local businesses that invest in the sites, endowment-matching programs and more state money might help.

Six years ago, with the state budget facing billion-dollar deficits, the Legislature cut the society’s funding by one-third, causing layoffs and curtailed hours at society sites.

Unloading historic sites isn’t unusual, said Bethany Hawkins of the American Association for State and Local History in Nashville.

States have made historic sites low priorities, compared with public-health and safety issues. Some states have turned ownership over to private groups and others don’t accept new properties unless they come with funding to maintain them.

“It’s a real problem in the field,” said Ken Turino of Historic New England, which manages 37 sites in five states. “It’s real tough.”

The Shaker Museum in Shaker Heights is the only state historical site in the Cleveland area. It receives $50 a month from the state to pay for a security system. Otherwise, an endowment makes it financially independent.

But the Shaker Historical Society, which operates the museum, has legal concerns.

The property was deeded to the state, and the group is concerned that a transfer could mean it goes back to the heirs of the original owners. Plus, the building is in a part of the city not zoned for museums.

“We enjoy protection because the state owns us,” said Sabine Kretzschmar, executive director of the Shaker Historical Society. “We’re not sure where [this plan] would leave us.”

Laidlaw said transfers will occur only if local groups are willing and have long-term business plans to keep the sites operating.

“We are not going to abandon any of these sites,” he said.