St. Joseph Museums to increase price of admission
Apr. 19—Insurance costs, retirement program expenses and wage increases have contributed to a six-figure budget deficit at the St. Joseph Museums.
A Museum Oversight Board meeting report stated that the price of admission to the facilities will increase due to the rising costs.
"Our group tours for students, that price is seven and then seniors are eight and adults are 10 (dollars)," said Sara Wilson, executive director of the St. Joseph Museums. "What we will be going to shortly is going to be $8 for students, $10 for seniors and $12 for adults."
The prices will go into effect during the museum's new fiscal year, which begins July 1. But the museum still faces a $141,000 deficit in the upcoming fiscal year, even with the admissions increase factored in.
"We have not had to pull any money from our reserves because we had COVID money that was coming in," she said. "And so, this year is the first time in a very long time that we've had to kind of talk about reaching into the reserves, which is not something that we want to do."
The St. Joseph Museums' board of directors has already made the decision that they are not laying off any staff. About 20,000 visitors come to the museums each year, and they have seen more traffic lately.
It's not just St. Joseph residents visiting the museums, either. A couple of friends visited the Glore Psychiatric Museum on Friday during a road trip.
"We're coming through St. Joseph on the way to Kansas City and had to stop by," Taylor Reidley said. "We found it online looking for roadside attractions to stop by on our road trip and saw the psychiatric museum."
Reidley and her friend, Courtney Jarka, work in the mental health field, so it was important for them to see how psychiatric hospitals operated in the past.
"We're seeing a lot of differences in the way treatment was back then," Jarka said. "Some of the devices that they even used before there was even pharmacotherapeutic intervention."
Both friends said they wouldn't mind paying a couple more dollars for their experience.
"I feel like you can't really put a maximum cost on seeing these types of experiences, especially, that are so unique to this area," Jarka said. "There's not many facilities like this across the country, from my own experience, so seeing this is worth it."
Wilson said board members held a lengthy finance meeting on Thursday to discuss where they can cut costs and earn more income.
"We do have more admissions coming in, we have more rentals going on than we ever have before," she said. "Our group tours and trips are going really well, so we have really tried to make up the deficit as much as we can, through earned income sources, but it's just been kind of a challenging time."
The Glore Psychiatric Museum is the St. Joseph Museums' No. 1 attraction, but a new wing for visitors to experience will open in about a month.
"That's going to cover geology and paleontology and archeology," Wilson said. "We know people are going to be wanting to come out and bring their families and see that, so that will definitely help."
