Minutes of the 77th meeting of the Museum Council – Allocation Meeting 2009
February 12, 2009, 12:00 – 17:00, Setberg, National Museum of Iceland
Present: Margrét Hallgrímsdóttir, chairman, Helgi Torfason, Sveinn Kristinsson, AlmaDís Kristinsdóttir, Júlíana Gottskálksdóttir and Rakel Halldórsdóttir.
1. A minor change was made to the minutes of the 76th meeting. The minutes will be approved and signed at the next meeting.
2. Allocation from the museum fund 2009.
Applications for the 2009 museum fund were discussed. A proposal for the 2009 allocation was approved. The proposal is based on the Museum Board's new calculation method for calculating operating grants, which was decided in early 2008, but allocations were also made taking into account the new method that year.
The scope of the salary costs in the operation of museums was taken into account when calculating the operating grant. It was agreed to provide operating grants in two categories, depending on the total salary costs of a museum. Museums with salary costs under 9,675,000 krónur will receive 1.6 million in operating grants. Museums with salary costs of 9,675,000 krónur and above will receive 2.35 million in operating grants. When allocating funds, the Ministry of Education and Culture's response to the Museum Council regarding grants to museums that receive additional grants in the 2009 budget for operations or projects was taken into account. The Ministry's letter states that since the Museum Council had not specifically advertised or announced that such grants would be considered in the 2009 allocation, this would not be possible in this allocation. It was agreed to provide museums with valid service agreements for services in the field of professional museum work to centers/exhibitions/institutions in museum work, which have the dissemination of cultural heritage as their main goal, a 100 thousand. kr. increase in operating funding for each valid agreement. Project grants were approved for several museums. The importance of increasing the weight of project grants in allocation was discussed. ADK and SK left the meeting while grants to museums they are associated with were discussed.
The Director was instructed to carefully review the proposal. The approved allocation was subsequently confirmed electronically by the Museum Council on February 19, 2009.
It was agreed to provide eligible museums according to Article 4 of the Museums Act with grants to facilitate the museums in sending representatives to the Continuing Education Course for Museum Professionals organized by the Association of Icelandic Museums and Museum Professionals and the Continuing Education Department of the University of Iceland, on March 16 and 17, 2009. Museums in the metropolitan area will receive a grant of ISK 10,000 per museum. Museums in rural areas will receive a grant of ISK 20,000 per museum. Applications for the grant must be made by letter to the Museums Council, accompanied by confirmation of payment of the course fee for the museum representative.
3. Next meeting and other mattersThe next meeting was scheduled for February 26th.
There was no further discussion and the meeting adjourned at 17:00/RH