Commissioner Murman quoted in this Tampa Tribune article on museum funding:

POLITICS

Hillsborough sets museum contribution at $325,000 each

By Mike Salinero | Tribune Staff 
Published: October 21, 2015   |   Updated: October 21, 2015 at 09:42 PM

TAMPA — Museums and arts venues that apply now and then for money from the Hillsborough County Commission will get an annual grant of $325,000 from now on to put toward building preservation.

Commissioners voted 5-0 Wednesday in favor of a capital asset preservation matching grant program. Commissioner Kevin Beckner, who came up with the idea, said the program would impose some order on funding for some of the county’s biggest attractions.

And because the grant requires a match, it will encourage fund-raising by the non-profit groups to raise their $325,000 share.

“The challenge we’ve faced every year is these organizations coming to us for money,” Beckner said in an interview before Wednesday’s meeting. “This gives them an opportunity to fund capital improvement projects, protects the county’s investment and solves the budget issues we deal with every year.”

The agencies eligible for the funding are the Glazer Children’s Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, the David A. Straz Center for the Performing Arts, the Florida Aquarium, Tampa Bay History Center, Tampa Theatre and Lowry Park Zoo. Adding other eligible agencies would require commissioners to revise the policy they approved Wednesday.

Julie Britton, vice present of development at the Straz Center, called the new funding policy a “tremendous opportunity and great initiative.”

“First and foremost it’s a tremendous acknowledgment that major cultural institutions need to maintain their facilities in a state of the art, relevant way, over and above our annual operations costs,” Britton said after the meeting.

“It gives us an opportunity to meet our capital needs,” Britton said, “and it’s been crafted in such a way that it will allow us to leverage funding from other public sources and from the private sector.”

Another important facet of the program is flexibility: The non-profit agencies can lend their yearly allotment to another eligible organization that may need more than its $325,000 share for a large building or preservation project. The loan is made with the understanding that the money will be returned later when the lending agency needs it.

“I put that in place to purposely let them work together and encourage collaboration when they come up for their capital improvement programs,” Beckner said.

Matches for the grants must be at least 25 percent cash. The rest can be expenditures, irrevocable pledges and documented, in-kind contributions. Other requirements are that the total project budget will be covered by committed, available funding sources; and that the work must be done by qualified professionals and licensed Florida contractors.

Several commissioners congratulated Beckner on the new policy.

“This helps them to improve their fund-raising and it encourages them to fund raise,” commission Chair Sandy Murman said. “It’s providing them a hand up and matching the grant gives them the muscle they need to get additional funding.”