State of the State
Governor Granholm gave her State of the State address tonight. It was realistic, which is good, but still hard to hear.
She's proposed going from 18 government departments to 8. One of those to be cut is the Division of History, Arts & Libraries. This is the division that houses the Office of the State Archaeologist, runs the state museum, the state library, the state archives, and 10 historical sites throughout the state. It also promotes the arts organizations in the state, coordinates art and history events, and offers grants that help a lot of our cultural organizing keep going. These organizations are already skimming by, and this will simply make it more difficult.
I assume there will be some reorganization occurring as part of this shut down, for example, the state archives are a necessary part of state government, they keep the records of all the other state organizations. I assume they will close to the public, and reduce staff.
The Office of the State Archaeologist maintains files for all the archaeological sites in the state, and they are a repository for archaeological collections. When a Cultural Resource Management firm is planning a project, they go to the OSA to see what work has been done prior to their project. The OSA keeps copies of reports of all research that has been done in the state, they house all the 'grey literature' that we need to look at. Presumably, as part of this crisis/stimulus, there will be construction projects going on, and construction leads to archaeology, so the OSA will still be necessary. They already have a minimal staff of 4, with one of those in Alpena, so they can't get too much smaller and still stay open. We'll have to wait and see I suppose.
One weird thing that might come out of this, is that if the museum closes, teachers will have to find other places to take students on field trips. This might bring more classes to other local museums, like the Nokomis Learning Center, the Women's Hall of Fame and the Surveying Museum. Or it might cause school groups to simply skip over the Lansing area and take field trips elsewhere. Only time will tell.
I understand the decision, though I'm not happy about it. But I'm sure everyone can argue for why the division they're interested in is important. We'll have to see how this all plays out. And of course, there were lots of very positive things in this speech too. Great energy ideas, lots of companies moving into Michigan. I still think Michigan will, ultimately, weather the recession better than a lot of other states, and get out of it sooner, simply because we've been in it longer, and working to fix it for so long. Sigh.
She's proposed going from 18 government departments to 8. One of those to be cut is the Division of History, Arts & Libraries. This is the division that houses the Office of the State Archaeologist, runs the state museum, the state library, the state archives, and 10 historical sites throughout the state. It also promotes the arts organizations in the state, coordinates art and history events, and offers grants that help a lot of our cultural organizing keep going. These organizations are already skimming by, and this will simply make it more difficult.
I assume there will be some reorganization occurring as part of this shut down, for example, the state archives are a necessary part of state government, they keep the records of all the other state organizations. I assume they will close to the public, and reduce staff.
The Office of the State Archaeologist maintains files for all the archaeological sites in the state, and they are a repository for archaeological collections. When a Cultural Resource Management firm is planning a project, they go to the OSA to see what work has been done prior to their project. The OSA keeps copies of reports of all research that has been done in the state, they house all the 'grey literature' that we need to look at. Presumably, as part of this crisis/stimulus, there will be construction projects going on, and construction leads to archaeology, so the OSA will still be necessary. They already have a minimal staff of 4, with one of those in Alpena, so they can't get too much smaller and still stay open. We'll have to wait and see I suppose.
One weird thing that might come out of this, is that if the museum closes, teachers will have to find other places to take students on field trips. This might bring more classes to other local museums, like the Nokomis Learning Center, the Women's Hall of Fame and the Surveying Museum. Or it might cause school groups to simply skip over the Lansing area and take field trips elsewhere. Only time will tell.
I understand the decision, though I'm not happy about it. But I'm sure everyone can argue for why the division they're interested in is important. We'll have to see how this all plays out. And of course, there were lots of very positive things in this speech too. Great energy ideas, lots of companies moving into Michigan. I still think Michigan will, ultimately, weather the recession better than a lot of other states, and get out of it sooner, simply because we've been in it longer, and working to fix it for so long. Sigh.