Scratching the surface of a 990: Why the ASO may be a lame duck | by Kevin Robison composer/aranger
September 19, 2014
September 19, 2014
Who is brave enough to open the books?
I think the WAC has some questions to answer, and in all fairness, there very well may be solid answers; but they will be buried deep in books that the public doesn’t have access to, at least not without a fight.
From a distance, it appears that if the WAC truly wanted to maintain a world-class symphony, it could find $2M a year from it’s $103M in unrestricted assets. Surely with $300M in gross receipts, there is a way to budget at the WAC without asking its symphony players to pay part of their healthcare and to give ultimate control of the number of players to Mr. Romanstein, which is a ruse intended to further reduce the orchestra size.
All this makes me wonder why the ASO board isn’t standing up for itself. Is it a WAC puppet? Does the board not question how the WAC distributes general contributions it receives? Do its members not realize that they will walk away from a failed symphony because they didn’t stand up to the almighty WAC? Perhaps the ASO board feels like a lame duck in this. After all, its president is taking his cues from somewhere else. As is clarified by the 990, Mr. Romanstein works for the WAC, not the ASO.
Kevin Robison
Conductor, Composer, Arranger and all-around unhappy Atlantan right now.
I think the WAC has some questions to answer, and in all fairness, there very well may be solid answers; but they will be buried deep in books that the public doesn’t have access to, at least not without a fight.
From a distance, it appears that if the WAC truly wanted to maintain a world-class symphony, it could find $2M a year from it’s $103M in unrestricted assets. Surely with $300M in gross receipts, there is a way to budget at the WAC without asking its symphony players to pay part of their healthcare and to give ultimate control of the number of players to Mr. Romanstein, which is a ruse intended to further reduce the orchestra size.
All this makes me wonder why the ASO board isn’t standing up for itself. Is it a WAC puppet? Does the board not question how the WAC distributes general contributions it receives? Do its members not realize that they will walk away from a failed symphony because they didn’t stand up to the almighty WAC? Perhaps the ASO board feels like a lame duck in this. After all, its president is taking his cues from somewhere else. As is clarified by the 990, Mr. Romanstein works for the WAC, not the ASO.
Kevin Robison
Conductor, Composer, Arranger and all-around unhappy Atlantan right now.
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