Federal funds cut for Indianapolis organizations, including Children's Museum

INDIANAPOLIS - Several notable Indianapolis museums have been impacted by the Trump administration's decision to cancel reimbursement of funding promised by the National Endowment for the Humanities.




The Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library offers dozens of programs for the community, but now they're reevaluating what programs they can provide going forward.




The long-standing building on Indiana Avenue needed some serious structural improvements, which they went ahead and completed recently.




"We've lost thousands of structures due to the hospital, the highways, the university coming over there, the development of the park," said Sampson Levingston, one of the board members for the organization. "This is one of the few buildings left of this district that meant so much to so many people."




They had to use operational funds for the project, with the expectation that they would be reimbursed by federal funds.




"We incurred the expenses based on a signed contract with the federal government, and in the past 15 years, they've always come through with their commitments, but not this time," said Julia Whitehead, CEO and founder of the museum. 




In order to make up for the loss of NEH funds, they will have to cancel some of their summer workshops and veteran programs.




The Children's Museum of Indianapolis is also losing a reimbursement of $199,000.




In a statement, they said:




 "The loss of nearly $200,000 in federal reimbursements would not only jeopardize our ability to complete important work, but also place undue pressure on our operating budget, which must absorb costs already incurred. Every unreimbursed dollar is one we cannot use to serve the children of Indiana."




A third group, Indiana Humanities, added that IMLS funding, which supports museums and libraries across the state, has already taken a hit.




"I think there's just a bigger story here about this withdrawal of funding from the cultural sector," said Kiera Amstutz, president and CEO of Indiana Humanities. 




Indiana Humanities said they're taking a step back to see if they're able to make ends meet without making program cuts.




They're urging people to raise awareness about how this will impact organizations across the state and beyond. 




"These were congressionally appropriated funds that are now not coming to Indiana, and I think our members of Congress are very interested in that," said Amstutz.




The organizations affected also ask for continued support from the community to keep their operations running. 



via: https://fox59.com/news/federal-funds-cut-for-indianapolis-organizations-including-childrens-museum/