Henrico yanks funding for Henricus historical site

Henricus Historical Park is a living-history museum that’s dedicated to the Citie of Henricus, an English settlement founded in 1611 shortly after colonists established Jamestown. (Photos courtesy Henricus Historical Park)

A nonprofit dedicated to sharing the history of Henrico’s earliest days will not be getting funding support from the county in the coming fiscal year.

Henricus Historical Park is short roughly a third of its annual operating budget after the Henrico Board of Supervisors approved its fiscal year 2025 spending plan without money earmarked for the riverfront attraction.

The decision came as a surprise to George Drumwright, board chairman of the Henricus Foundation, which runs the 10-acre historical site and its recreated 1600s-era English fort and Powhatan village at 251 Henricus Park Road near Chester.

Drumwright said the group’s $1 million annual budget has for years been covered by a roughly three-way split between funding allocations from Henrico, Chesterfield and the foundation’s own revenues.

Drumwright said in an interview last week that the shortfall, even with the foundation’s reserves, will be challenging to work around.

“It puts us on the ropes, no doubt about it,” Drumwright said. “It will be felt tremendously, but there are things the foundation can do.”

A former deputy county manager, Drumwright worked at Henrico for decades until his retirement in 2012. He said Henrico had consistently provided funding support to the Henricus foundation since it was founded in the 1980s.

Henrico provided $356,000 as part of the current fiscal year 2024 budget, and the county’s proposed budget for the upcoming year initially included the same amount for FY25. However, that line item had been removed by the time the budget was adopted in early April.

That’s because Henrico supervisors, juggling multiple budget priorities, decided it didn’t have the funds to give Henricus in light of those other pressures, Henrico Board Chairman Tyrone Nelson told BizSense.

Among those priorities, Nelson cited the increased costs that Henrico has shouldered to keep a regional curbside recycling contract going after Chesterfield opted out of the agreement’s curbside pickup in 2023, among other budget priorities.

Tyrone Nelson

“We had to take on a greater financial commitment with the Central Virginia Waste Management Authority when it comes to how to handle recycling pickups,” Nelson said. “Chesterfield made a decision to pull out there and that affected us financially. Continuing that relationship with CVWMA is important.”

Other competing priorities included Henrico’s desire to provide funding for a Richmond-based regional homeless shelter, as well as plans for a 2,100-acre former plantation the county acquired in Varina earlier this year. Nelson said the county intends to use the property as a historical education site.

“We’re going to be investing in telling our story at Varina Farms,” Nelson said, referring to that property, which served as the county’s seat from 1632 to 1752 and is across the James River from Henricus.

The annual budget approval process in Henrico, as well as in other localities, involves receiving and considering multiple funding requests from local nonprofits that are engaged in work ranging from social services to cultural and sports programming. Nelson noted that the original FY25 budget proposal created by County Manager John Vithoulkas included a line item for Henricus, but that ultimately the board decided to eliminate the funding.

“We adopt the budget, but we also make modifications in the budget and that was one of the modifications. The county manager’s proposed budget included Henricus. The Board of Supervisors made the decision (not to fund Henricus),” Nelson said, adding that the board could potentially choose to provide funding for Henricus in a future budget.

Henricus Historical Park features a recreated 1600s English fort and Powhatan village on a historical site near Chester.

Drumwright said he was informed of the county’s decision not to give Henricus money in an April 16 letter from Vithoulkas.

In the letter, which was shared with BizSense, Vithoulkas wrote that there would be no funding earmarked for Henricus in light of the pending expiration of an operating agreement for the site between the nonprofit, Henrico and Chesterfield, as well as what the letter described as an unforeseeable future.

“As you know, the Operating Agreement for the park is set to expire on September 1, 2024, and it is unclear what the future holds for the park. Coinciding with the expiration of the Agreement, Henrico County’s approved annual fiscal plan for FY2024-2025 does not include funding for the operation of the park in the new fiscal year,” the letter read.

“Please accept my sincere gratitude for everything the Foundation has done to enlighten residents, visitors and school children about the history of the region.”

The letter didn’t mention any other reasons driving the county’s funding decision.

Drumwright said he didn’t know what was “unclear” about the historical site’s future. He said that prior to that letter, he received a resignation letter from Henrico’s representative on the Henricus board of trustees earlier in April.

The operating agreement for the site had been in effect in one form or another for more than 20 years, according to Henricus Executive Director Charlie Grant. He said he was under the impression up until recently that the agreement would be renewed with Henrico’s participation.

Chesterfield County Administrator Joe Casey said the foundation informed him that Henrico pulled its funding for the nonprofit. He said Chesterfield continues to support the historical site.

“We’re a continued supporter and funder of Henricus,” Casey said. “We’re vested in the foundation being successful. We have a lot of time to figure that out because they have been fiscally well managed.”

In addition to providing direct cash to Henricus, Chesterfield also provides back-office services like payroll for the historical site’s 16 workers, who are employees of the county. The site is a program of the Chesterfield parks and recreation department.

Casey said municipal governments have to make tough decisions during budget season when it comes to funding requests from local groups, and didn’t have any criticism for Henrico’s move.

“I’m not here to opine on what Henrico is or isn’t doing,” he said. “I respect what other localities have to go through to balance a budget. It’s not an easy job.”

Henricus is a living-history museum that depicts the Citie of Henricus, which was established in 1611 and was the second successful English settlement in Virginia following Jamestown.

The foundation reported $1.1 million in expenses and about $888,500 in revenue in its FY22 tax filing, which was the latest available tax filing on a nonprofits database maintained by news outlet ProPublica.

While Henricus doesn’t intend to end its operations in light of Henrico’s decision not to fund the organization, it remains to be seen how it’ll address the shortfall. In addition to general admissions and event programming, the site hosts visits from school tour groups.

Grant, the executive director of Henricus, said the nonprofit had been interested in constructing an indoor museum to expand its offerings but that the decision by Henrico to pull its funding complicates those plans.

“We get tens of thousands of school kids, and it will impact how we serve them and how we serve the public. There’s no way around that,” Grant said. “We’re either going to need other partners to come in or we’re going to have to adjust operations here to meet the revenue.”