News
By Anthony LaMesa
|
April 10, 2003
A University branch of the Virginia Museum of Natural History could become the latest casualty of Virginia's slash and burn budget balancing if it can not raise $150,000 by August.
The small museum, located across from the Cavalier Inn on Emmett Street, must acquire funds to pay its three part-time staff members or it will be forced to close, according to Branch Director Dela Alexander.
An additional 15 percent cut to the state museum's total operating budget last October, on top of a 42 percent cut imposed during last year's legislative session, resulted in the decision to close museum branches at the University and Virginia Tech, said Judith Winston, interim director of the Virginia Museum of Natural History.
"It was either the two branches or close down the main building" in Martinsville, Winston said.