LEWISTON — With $100,000 in debt and an unclear mission, the L/A Arts board of directors is pondering the fate of the downtown agency.
Board Secretary John Painter said Monday the group had a cash balance of $12,838. “However, with payroll, rent and all that, by Aug. 2 we will have negative $1,875,” he said.
Painter said the consensus of the board is that “we all want to make things work. Part of it is just trying to understand what our biggest partners’ perspective is and that includes the city. We have to be very mindful of our obligations and of paying people back.”
According to the group’s tax form filed with the Internal Revenue Service, L/A Arts showed $548,000 in expenses and $543,000 in income in 2011. The group had $119,491 in assets and $27,718 in liabilities, according to the financial report.
Painter said the board’s efforts are aimed at figuring out how the group got in this situation.
“It’s been a matter of figuring out who we owe for what and from which pool of money,” he said. “When you have grant money, it’s supposed to be used for what the grant states. So we are being very careful picking things out, making sure we know about our obligations to grantors. It’s a lot of picking through stuff.”
The board parted ways with Executive Director Odelle Bowman earlier this month. Josh Vink, director of the Arts in Education program, will serve as acting executive director going forward, Painter said.
He declined to comment on why and how Bowman left. She was director for two years and helped create several events during that time, including the February ICEfest L/A and the Friday night art walks in downtown Lewiston and Auburn. The group also helped operate a Lisbon Street art gallery for a time as well as a stage under its Lisbon Street office.
Painter said those may be the kinds of things the organization will stay away from if it manages to survive.
“We have a number of arts organizations, theaters, music societies and other groups that we should not, in any way, compete with,” Painter said. “I think there has been a little bit of concern about that.”
Painter said the group might not sponsor performances but instead would support events and arts sponsors.
“It’s been a straying from our original mission of advocacy, focusing on community arts education and support for the arts in general,” he said. “There have been so many things all over the place. We got to the point where we didn’t have stringent enough financial controls in place. Our business model just was not going to work as a result and there was some poor decision-making about our priorities.”
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