The Ximenez-Fatio house is at 20 Aviles St. In St. Augustine. | Kaia Wright, Jacksonville Today
Published on July 24, 2025 at 4:34 pm
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Some arts and culture organizations in St. Johns County are struggling with a loss of funding under new regulations and state and federal budget cuts.
In 2024, Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed $35 million of the state’s arts and culture funding. This year he allocated $27 million in his new budget, but new guidelines and a stricter scoring system still leave many groups without funding.
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This has affected museums like the Ximenez-Fatio House in St. Augustine, which received cuts from both the state and federal governments this year.
“It’s so frustrating. We had just learned we’d lost the federal one too. Long story short, we did not get this year’s either,” museum Director Payson Tilden tells Jacksonville Today. “These are hard grants to get because you go through such a long approval process, so when you get them cut after waiting the year expecting the funds, it’s tough.”
In previous years, organizations were vetted and given a score. If they received a rating of 80 or higher, they received funding. The standard this year was 95, causing many organizations that previously received funding to miss out — including the Ximenez-Fatio house museum.
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The museum also was a casualty of cuts at the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency that provides library and museum grants, policy development and research. The institute’s cuts followed a larger movement to cut down on federal spending and reduce the federal workforce under the Trump administration.
“About two months ago, we were up for a grant,” Tilden says. “We had been approved by the organization, the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences. We were waiting for the final approval, but the approval had not come through, and Trump eliminated the whole department. We lost that grant completely, which was a blow.”
Grant money is not guaranteed every year, causing many organizations to rely on private grants and funding. In previous years, the Ximenez-Fatio house allocated funds for artifact and museum preservation. Due to cuts, private funding is being redirected to keeping the museum open, leaving many artifacts in desperate need of attention and preservation.
“Because the building is so old, I have the money right now for the level of preservation that we’re doing, but we have probably 2,000 to 3,000 artifacts, and most of them date from the 1830s to the 1850s, and they are in desperate need,” Tilden says. “I have to use these other grants to just sustain the museum in a lot of cases.”
Artifacts range from indigo-dyed bedspreads to hand-stitched samplers. Tilden says that for many of these, she’s on her third attempt to find funding just to cover preservation.
Museums are especially vital in St. Augustine, which counts on tourism as a main source of revenue.
“Some of the museums in St. Augustine are smaller organizations than we are, and they depend heavily on some of those state grants,” Tilden says. ”If we don’t get them it can put some of those organizations completely out of business altogether or close down for a year.”
One local theater, the Limelight in St. Augustine, was on the chopping block in DeSantis’ budget last year. This year the theater received full funding, scoring above the 95 threshold.
“We just feel very fortunate that they have rated us high enough to get our full allotted amount. Last year when everything was cut, it drastically affected us and we did not get to do a full season,” says Sherrie Provence, executive director of the Limelight.
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The theater is back to its regularly programmed nine-show season with the state funding set to hit in September. The loss of funding was devastating last year at a time when the building needed repairs. This year, the theater hopes to bounce back with the $90,000 it will receive from the state, Provence says.
“We’re trying to regain a little bit of ground that was lost,” Provence says. “We typically like to have a lot more in the bank, but we are chugging along and we’re very grateful for the donors, the sponsors, and the people who have kept us afloat through these lean times.”
