Local arts and cultural groups struggling to make ends meet will face more belt-tightening next year under the $79.4 million budget approved yesterday by the Allegheny Regional Asset District board.

The final spending plan is essentially the same as the preliminary version released Sept. 29, meaning that many groups will find their current allocations cut by as much as 10 percent in 2010.

Among them will be Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, Phipps Conservatory, the National Aviary and the Carnegie Museums, all of which will see their grants sliced by 2.5 percent.

Most other groups will find their allocations cut by 10 percent. RAD board members said the budget was the best they could do given declining sales tax revenues, the RAD's chief funding source.

While cuts were generally the rule, there were exceptions. The board kept the Carnegie Library's allocation at $17.6 million, the same level as this year. Funding for the Allegheny County Library Association and the city, county and McKeesport parks also will stay the same.

RAD has seen sales tax revenues drop an average of 1.9 percent a month in the first half of 2009 compared to the same period last year and an average of 4.4 percent a month since June.

"This increasingly negative trend shows that the unemployment rate is yielding lower consumer confidence and lower discretionary spending," the board's allocation committee stated in recommending the 2010 budget.

Next year RAD is budgeting the same $76.6 million in sales tax revenue that it estimates it will receive this year.

At $79.4 million, the new budget is actually $822,014 less than the 2009 spending plan.

Taking one of the biggest hits was the city-Allegheny County Sports & Exhibition Authority, which will receive $500,000, or half of what it got this year, for operation of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

However, the RAD board did provide $250,000 for capital improvements at the convention center without requiring a match by tourism agency VisitPittsburgh, as it originally had proposed.

The only one to receive an increase for next year is the Senator John Heinz History Center, which will see its allocation raised $60,000 to $460,000 in recognition of its takeover of the Fort Pitt Museum in Point State Park.

To help fund the budget, the board plans to use almost $2.8 million in reserves, a "manageable and necessary risk to sustain our assets" given the tough economic climate, the allocations committee stated.

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