NORTHUMBERLAND — A management agreement that gives the Friends of Joseph Priestley House complete control of operations at the historic site is expected to soon be signed by the state Historic and Museum Commission.
Thomas Bresenhan, of Lewisburg, co-president of the Friends group, said the new contract is open-ended.
Bresenhan said the preliminary budget for 2010 operations is between $12,000 and $15,000.
Under the management agreement, the state agency will pay for utilities and property maintenance, while the Friends will be responsible for programming, insurance and custodial services.
“We will have direct control of the property,” Bresenhan said.
Under the earlier agreement, the Friends had only two keys to the property, for example. That earlier associates agreement was signed in September and allowed the Friends to open the site for visitors, but the state maintained strict control of the site.
Kirk Wilson, spokesman for the Historical and Museum Commission, said the Priestley management agreement is the first one to be completed. He said five state historic sites were closed as a result of negotiations for the recently passed state budget, and volunteer groups like the Friends of Joseph Priestley House are working to reopen all of them.
“We had to wait for the state budget to be passed before we knew how much we could help the friends groups,” Wilson said.
Wilson said the Harrisburg staff will spend the first months of 2010 reviewing similar agreements with the other sites.
“It will be next year before the others are approved,” he said. “It takes a lot of time to review the agreements.”
A contract for renovations of the Pond Building, a small auxiliary structure on the site, was recently let by the state, Bresenhan said. The $70,000 contract, scheduled to start in March, includes insulation, new flooring and windows and alterations to make the building accessible.
The renovations were funded by the Friends and other donors, Bresenhan said.
The Historic and Museum Commission was one of the hardest-hit state agencies in the state’s 2009-2010 budget, losing about a third of its employees in budget-driven layoffs. The only paid employee at Priestley House was furloughed Aug. 14 and the site was closed until Oct. 3, when the all-volunteer Friends group reopened the site on weekends only. About 100 people make up the Friends, and they volunteers as guides at the site.
“Our largest costs will be for insurance and marketing,” he said. A contract for custodial services in the visitors center will also be a cost, he noted. Members of the Friends organization have been specially trained to dust and clean in the Priestley House itself, where numerous artifacts are displayed.
n E-mail comments to wlaepple@dailyitem.com.
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