What’s at stake if the Illinois State Museum closes?
The Illinois State Museum is on the chopping block as lawmakers struggle to reach a budget agreement, and the museum’s board is warning of several complications that could arise if the institution closes.
Opened in 1877, the museum at 502 S.
Spring St. in Springfield is the most visible of six facilities proposed for closure statewide. Sixty-eight workers face layoff or reassignment at the facilities, including 34 at the Springfield museum and 17 at an associated research center in Springfield.
The proposal to close the museum and its satellites comes as Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Democrat-controlled Illinois General Assembly spar over the state budget, which is underfunded by more than $3 billion. Rauner has proposed closing the museum, with its $6.3 million annual budget, as part of a larger package of spending cuts. The museum is part of the Department of Natural Resources, now headed by former Republican state representative Wayne Rosenthal, a Rauner appointee.
A request for details on the closure sent to Rauner’s office went unanswered.
Guerry Suggs is chairman of the Illinois State Museum Board, which makes recommendations to the director of DNR about how to run the museum. Suggs opposes closing the museum, saying it would cause new problems while doing little to help the state balance its budget.
One problem Suggs pointed to is the likely loss of the museum’s national accreditation, a prestigious accomplishment achieved by only about 5 percent of museums in the U.S. National accreditation means access to more grants and the trust of donors who loan their collections to museums.
Suggs says the artifacts the museum manages will be cared for, but those which were borrowed will have to be returned to their owners. Even if the museum reopens in the future, he says it’s unlikely that donors would trust their collections to the museum ever again.
Once you close this museum, what does somebody who wants to give you a collection say?” he said. “It destroys some of your credibility. Our accreditation goes out the window if we’re not open, and it takes away all we’ve built up. Looking through the eyes of a donor, you can’t help but think, ‘What the hell are you going to do this time?’ ” The museum also maintains several archaeological sites around the state. Asked what might happen to those sites if the museum closes, Suggs said, “That’s a hell of a good question.”
“Who knows what will happen to those sites?” he said. “This is an unprecedented event in the history of the museum.”
One of the archaeological sites the museum maintains is Dixon Mounds, a prehistoric Native American burial site about 40 miles northwest of Springfield. The skeletal remains at the site are subject to the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which requires such remains to be cared for and returned to Native American groups on demand. Closing the museum might prompt lawsuits from Native Americans whose ancestors are buried at Dixon Mounds if the site is not maintained, Suggs said.
Dixon Mounds is subject to that federal law because the Illinois State Museum receives federal funding, which Suggs says raises other questions. If the museum closes, Suggs wonders whether the museum will have to pay back federal grants for work that is in progress but is not yet completed.
The scientists and researchers working on those federal grants are likely to leave the state’s employ if the museum closes, Suggs said. Many of them are well-respected in their fields, and their loss would represent a “brain drain,” he adds.
Suggs says he isn’t sure whether Rauner is serious about closing the museum or whether the popular facility is merely being used as a bargaining chip.
“We have to take it seriously,” he said. “If I didn’t take it seriously and said it was just a ploy and then the museum closed, I’d regret it the rest of my life.”
Mary Jo Potter of Springfield is also on the Illinois State Museum Board. She says closing the museum would be a mistake because it represents the state’s culture and history, which started long before Europeans entered the area.
“We have a very rich collection of materials that we try to use to educate the public about who we are and where we’ve been,” she said. “Unless we understand where we’ve been, we have no way to make plans or think about what our future will be.”
Supporters of the museum have created a Facebook page to promote the museum’s mission and oppose its closure. As of June 16 the page had 5,422 likes. Find it online at on.fb. me/1R4SBqL. A moveon.org petition to oppose closure had 4,948 signatures earlier this week.
Contact Patrick Yeagle at [email protected].
