With attendance, sales and patronage down, local non-profit arts groups are cutting programs and staff.

Organizations including Bainbridge Performing Arts, Bainbridge Arts and Crafts, and the Arts and Humanities Council related their budgetary woes to the Bainbridge Economic Council at a meeting Wednesday.

“It’s erosion,” BPA Board President Dick Daniel said. “So how do you stop the erosion?”

No easy answer emerged.

The groups were invited by BEC, an informal forum for the discussion of island economic issues, to report on the “state of the arts” in the troubled economy.

Going into 2002, the three groups had operating budgets totaling about $1.5 million. The jointly sponsored Auction for the Arts had grown to the point that it was raising funds in six figures for the sponsoring organizations.

But the auction was cancelled, as donations and attendance were expected to fall off. And each group is making new plans for its own fund-raising, and other survival strategies.

Gallery sales at the 54-year-old BAC have been down 30 percent since July, board president Susan Levy told the group.

In August, the organization surrendered 500 square feet of gallery space.

Offices and retail were merged in one of two one-time visual arts areas; the gallery also announced the suspension of most educational programs, including subsidies to local schools.

It has also cut back the percentage of sales it gives to artists who sell their work through the Winslow Way gallery.

The cuts came as a blow, only a year after an executive director was hired full-time in an expansion and reorganization of BAC operations.

“We needed an executive director and so we hired one,” Levy said. “We thought we were ‘full steam ahead,’ and then the economy hit us.”

The organization plans to trim next year’s operating budget from $700,000 to $500,000.

Director Marian Holt McClain is taking a cut in pay, and said staff has been pared down to “a painful level.”

The BAC exhibition schedule will be cut from 12 to six fine art shows for 2003, and the organization has not yet determined if any will be solo exhibits.

The gallery will look more to tourism, said McClain, whose field of expertise is that industry.

“We want, more and more, to be a ‘destination gallery’ for people getting on the ferries,” she said. “We’re looking at ‘cultural tourism.’ It makes a huge difference to us.”

The gallery is planning a second annual “Art Xchange” fund-raiser in March, McClain said, and is applying for more grants, while seeking patrons to underwrite individual exhibits.

BPA board president Daniel declined to translate his organization’s financial woes into numbers.

“I’ll just say we’re in trouble,” he said. “We’re very, very close to the belt, with no cash reserves.”

Daniel did say that BPA still owes $60,000 on one loan, and has “maxed out” a $12,000 line of credit to meet cash flow needs.

At least $5,000 in pledges from last spring’s drive is still outstanding, and cancellation of the Auction for the Arts left the group with a $20,000 budget shortfall, in an operating budget of nearly $500,000.

Daniel said BPA hopes to widen its audience base with new programming, a series of adult dramas launched this fall.

“Our motto right now is ‘We need more butts in seats,’” he said.

The first two, “More Fun than Bowling” and “Rimers of Eldritch,” received good reviews but filled just half the house most nights.

One of the productions would have lost money were it not for underwriting by BPA trustees and the volunteer production work of the Island Theater troupe.

BPA eliminated its development director – what had been a newly created paid position. And Jim Quitslund, who heads the BPA’s production committee, says the troupe will put on more low-overhead productions and seek more volunteers.

BPA has also planned a fund-raiser for next month, and will sell individual theater seats to patrons.

This year’s theater season and theater school classes will go on as planned.

“We won’t compromise quality,” Daniel said. “If we go that route, that’ll shut us down.”

The stories are similar at the Arts and Humanities Council.

When BIAHC executive director Nancy Frey came on board six years ago, the organization had a $60,000 deficit that took three years to turn around.

“We’ve already been through a financial crunch,” Frey said. “Now we’re feeling the pinch again with loss of the auction, and other fund-raising shortfalls.”

Designated by the city to nurture the arts on the island and implementing the Cultural Element of the city’s Comprehensive Plan, BIAHC lost $20,000 in potential revenue with the cancellation of the auction.

The organization had a $280,000 operating budget in 2001.

But Frey said the outfit is not dipping into reserves, because it learned to economize.

“We’re re-evaluating programs, staff and money allocations and basically kind of slimming down without sacrificing programs,” Frey said.

But with foundation and corporate giving down across the board, BIAHC and other arts organizations will have to look to individual constituencies.

“These are lean times for these organizations,” BIAHC board president David Lewis said. “We’re in a survival mode.

“But this community is too culturally savvy to let the arts disappear from their lives.”