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VOTED that the Board of Regents approves the establishment of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for External Affairs, and a budget of $300,000 for fiscal year 1988.

As has been the practice for the last several years $3.0 million has been budgeted as a transfer to the Institution's unrestricted endowment.  This year it is proposed that $1.5 million of that amount be used to establish an endowment for the Smithsonian Institution Press for the publication of scholarly books.  The purpose of the fund would be to provide assistance for worthy scholarly publications which cannot be expected to earn back the costs of publication.  The Smithsonian Publications Council will approve requests for funding after at least two substantive reviews of the proposed work are made.  This mechanism will allow the Smithsonian Institution Press to publish important works which it might otherwise be precluded from doing in order to meet its budgeted net income, and the following motion was therefore suggested and approved:

VOTED that the Secretary is authorized to establish, as part of the Institution's endowment funds, a quasi-unrestricted designated fund to be known as the Smithsonian Press Scholarly Books Fund and that the transfer of unrestricted monies identified for the purpose is authorized.

Operating experience for the first two months of the fiscal year is insufficient to be indicative of annual performance.  Therefore projections remain the same as budgeted (see Schedule D).  However, certain events have occurred which will ultimately impact the budget and are therefore worth noting at this time.  A lack of success resulted in the decision to discontinue the National Museum of African Art capital campaign.  As of December 31, 1987 $550,000 had been advanced for the campaign.  Of that amount $200,000 has been recovered via unrestricted donations.  The remaining $350,000 will most likely have to be absorbed out of general unrestricted trust funds.  Additionally the fiscal year 1988 and fiscal year 1989 Trust fund budgets anticipated revenue of $200,000 and $300,000 respectively from the African Art campaign to partially reimburse unrestricted Trust funds for the purchase of the Deletaille collection.  There is no prospect that this $500,000 in total can be realized.  It should be noted, however, that the National Museum of African Art received at year end a restricted grant of $250,000 from the Annie Laurie Aitken Charitable Trust to establish an endowment for acquisitions.

The Institution received a legal settlement of $1,300,000 resulting from an oil spill which damaged long-term research opportunities at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.  The Institute has requested that an endowment fund be established with these funds to support especially promising research programs.  It is hoped establishment of this endowment will serve as a catalyst to raising additional external funds for this same purpose, and the following motion was suggested and approved: