BUDGET CRUNCH RI Historical Society gains a reprieve BY BRIAN C. JONES

What is Rhode Island’s history worth? Put another way: what’s a soul worth?

Listen to Bernard P. Fishman, executive director of the Rhode Island Historical Society, link the two concepts: "An organization which — as we have for almost 200 years — has protected the most valuable historical records, pictures, maps, documents of every kind, objects, newspapers, is also the guardian of a great deal of the soul of our state," Fishman says.

Putting a price tag on history — and a state’s soul — became a topic earlier this spring when Governor Donald L. Carcieri proposed sharply cutting the money allocated by the state to the historical society. The governor had suggested reducing the annual contribution to the nonprofit group from about $370,000 this year to about $172,000 next year — a nearly 54 percent drop. That set off loud howls and the discussion of souls.

Fishman forecast laying off about a dozen of the society’s full and part-time workers; cutting back hours in the society’s archives, and maybe scaling back the society’s management of the seven-year-old Museum of Work and Culture in Woonsocket. Some 40,000 people tour or visit the society’s Providence and Woonsocket museums, examine its files and take its walking tours, and, as such, he says, the society is "a not insignificant" part of the state’s economy.

History buffs of all sorts were out of sorts at the prospect of deep cuts.

"This is high-class, high-octane history, and nobody seems to care," says D. Scott Molloy Jr., a labor professor at the University of Rhode Island, who is a past member of the society’s board of directors.

Most state historical societies receive support from their states, with some getting up to 80 percent of their budgets from the public, according to Fishman. Up to now, the Rhode Island group has been getting about 21 percent of its $1.8 million budget from the state.

One reason the state allocation is important, Fishman says, is that it helps the society raise about $1 million in other funds from foundations and donors, supplementing the small investment income from the society’s relatively modest $4 million endowment (which itself is one-third smaller than it was seven years ago, because of stock declines and withdrawals to cover deficits).

Important projects at the society include a 30-year effort to document and publish the papers of Rhode Islander Nathanael Greene, a key Revolutionary War general. The state’s allocation has attracted federal and other funds to the project, which has published 12 volumes and has only one more year — and one more book — to be complete.

As he visited the State House to argue against the cuts, Fishman says he cringed when walking past the general’s portrait. But as of Tuesday, May 25, Fishman was able to give General Greene the high sign that Rhode Island’s soul may not be in as much trouble as feared. Carcieri announced proposed budget restorations because of higher-than-expected state revenues, and the society’s allocation was among those to be restored.

The society problems aren’t history yet. The General Assembly has to ratify the governor’s changes. Further, the society has plenty of other financial problems. It balanced its budget this year after a string of deficits — and it has been working for months on a long-term operational plan that it has yet to make public.