RALEIGH – Larry Wheeler thinks that his state pay of about $100,000 to direct the North Carolina Museum of Art is far too low. So do the members of the N.C. Museum of Art Foundation, who have for years supplemented his salary with private funds adding up to six figures a year. In 2005, according to a critical new report from State Auditor Les Merritt, Wheeler’s combined compensation exceeded $350,000. The foundation has also supplemented the salaries of some 50 other employees of the state-operated Raleigh museum, sometimes substantially.
As it happens, I agree with Larry Wheeler and his benefactors that running a major American art museum is a job that likely deserves far more than $100,000 a year. I also agree with the state auditor that intermingling public and private money for staff employment at a state agency raises significant questions of equity and conflict of interest.
The solution is not to whack the current museum director’s pay, or replace him with a lower-cost alternative. The solution is to move the N.C. Museum of Art into the private, voluntary sector where it belongs. Keep these three points in mind.
First, state government doesn’t get to set the terms of the labor market. Managers can certainly set compensation amounts for top executives within state agencies, but those agencies compete with private entities (companies or nonprofits) for labor, materials, and clientele. If in order to avoid angering taxpayers or managers in other state agencies, the state holds executive compensation below that available from competitors, the result will be to lose top-flight managers.
Now, there’s an argument to be made that the state shouldn’t care much about this. What difference does it make if a taxpayer-funded museum fails to attract the same quality of leadership, or enjoy the same level of cachet, that a private museum does? The only potential justification of state museums is an extension of the state’s public-education function, the success of which has little to do with whether North Carolina’s museum is nationally or internationally well-regarded.
But in practice, this argument rarely works (I know, I’ve tried it in other contexts). Arts organizations will inevitably measure their value, and communicate it to potential funders, based on perceptions of relative stature or merit. If you are trying to get prized pieces of art donated to your museum, you are going to care about how your museum is perceived in the art world – because the donors probably do.
The second proposition is that the supposed public-education function of museums, symphonies, and other “high art” programs, if accepted as legitimate, can be more efficiently structured and financed in ways other than having state government own and operate them. For example, if groups of public schoolchildren form a significant part of the annual attendance of a museum, then route the taxpayer subsidy through the schools and let educators decide how best to use it. Perhaps they will choose to load up the buses and head to the museum, where they will pay a reasonable admission price. But given the choice, they might instead choose to upgrade their school’s computer system to allow students more access to Internet-based exploration of various museum collections and artifacts. When the state funds the museum directly, it takes that choice away from educators.
Third, reality intrudes on this theoretical justification, anyway. The fact of the matter is that most consumers of the service of viewing art are relatively well-educated, relatively wealthy people. They are neither a representative sample of the taxpaying population nor a group of disadvantaged people for whom some might argue taxpayer subsidies should be afforded. State ownership and funding of arts facilities largely means confiscating the money of people whose artistic sensibilities tend towards profitable forms of arts and entertainment – nice-looking prints, rock concerts, country-music festivals – in order to reduce the ticket prices for wealthier people who prefer visiting museums and symphonies.
I appreciate fine art. And I appreciate the managerial talents of Larry Wheeler and other arts professionals. That’s why I think I should pay my own way, the proceeds of which can without objection or embarrassment be added to their hefty, earned salaries.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.