Arts commission backs museum request to transfer endowment interest to donations fund

The Gilroy Arts & Culture Commission voted to endorse a request from the Gilroy Historical Society to transfer accrued interest from the museum’s endowment trust into the museum donations fund and forward that recommendation to the city council.

Susan Boss, museum manager, presented the Gilroy Museum’s 2025 annual report and outlined how the museum used volunteers, donations and grants to support operations. Boss told commissioners the museum recorded more than 1,000 walk‑in visitors from 18 states and five countries and reached 2,028 participants across programs last year. She said volunteers contributed what she described as nearly 3,000 hours in an earlier year, and staff estimated the time’s value at roughly $48,544 at minimum wage.

Boss summarized collections work and preservation investments: the museum has not completed a full inventory but staff estimate about 25,000 artifacts in holdings; 242 new artifacts were accepted this year and over 425 items were cataloged. She highlighted recent conservation steps — blackout curtains and reflective window film to reduce ultraviolet/infrared exposure, a move from wood shelving to metal racks (a Rotary Club grant helped fund shelving), polyester enclosures for bound volumes, and a multi‑phase storage reorganization to protect fragile items.

Boss described a major accession from a local family — thousands of historical documents (roughly 3,000) scanned by volunteers, with select materials transferred to the state archives — and a multiyear photo catalog project that now lists 1,185 completed photo records out of roughly 7,000 photos in the collection. She also noted a recent $10,000 check to the Gilroy Library from the Carnegie Foundation that the museum proposes to use as a partner to digitize remaining local newspapers and make them searchable online.

The transfer request is tied to a 2007 endowment trust agreement; the trust was seeded in part by proceeds from a 2009 auction sale (the transcript references a Kaiser Wilhelm vase sold for $37,500 whose proceeds were deposited in the trust). Commissioners moved and seconded a recommendation to the city council to transfer accrued interest from the endowment trust to the museum donations fund; the motion passed unanimously. The precise dollar amount transcribed in the record appears as “$2,13” and is not legible in the copy of the meeting record; staff/agenda materials to be submitted to council should state the exact amount.

What it means: the commission’s endorsement clears the way for the Historical Society and museum staff to ask the city council to use interest from the endowment for conservation, cataloging and digitization projects. Council approval is required because the city is trustee of the museum collection and the trust agreement specifies city oversight.

The commission heard additional contingency plans: an April artifact sale to free storage space, continued storage reorganization (phase three) with more metal racks, and outreach to regional museums to rehome select objects. The museum manager said she would return with updates next year.