{"id":167631,"date":"2018-06-22T01:28:44","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T05:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=167631"},"modified":"2018-06-22T01:28:44","modified_gmt":"2018-06-22T05:28:44","slug":"new-management-for-sci-port-discovery-center-in-shreveport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/06\/22\/new-management-for-sci-port-discovery-center-in-shreveport\/","title":{"rendered":"New management for Sci Port Discovery Center in Shreveport"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The new non-profit must conclude an agreement with the City of Shreveport, though Sci-Port’s IMAX and Power of Play children’s museum will remain open pending city approval of the new arrangement. (Photo <\/a>by Louisiana Travel\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY-ND 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SHREVEPORT, La. \u2014 A Louisiana science centre and children’s\u00a0museum\u00a0that has been on financial life support and opened on a limited basis will get new management.<\/p>\n

A new non-profit backed by the Community Foundation of North Louisiana will take over the Shreveport-owned building that houses the Sci-Port Discovery Center, officials announced at a news conference Wednesday. The old management, Sci-Port Discovery Center Inc., is out.<\/p>\n

The new non-profit, Red River STEM Inc., is supported by a group of community organizations and individuals. The Community Foundation will initially serve as the non-profit’s fiscal agency, The Shreveport Times reported .<\/p>\n

In 2017, Sci-Port’s financial difficulties came to light when an audit by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office concluded that the non-profit had improperly used donor-restricted funds for purposes not approved by donors.<\/p>\n

The Sci-Port’s long-time executive director left the organization and its non-profit board announced that the attraction would close for an upgrade as well as to get its finances in order. The attraction opened on a limited basis earlier this year but most of Sci-Port’s more than 70 employees were laid off.<\/p>\n

Community Foundation President Kristina Gustavson said the new non-profit and the Community Foundation will not be assuming the former Sci-Port non-profit’s debts. Specialized staff members currently employed at Sci-Port will be \u201cstrongly recommended\u201d for positions under the new management.<\/p>\n

Rich Lamb, chairman of the board that has operated Sci-Port, declined to say in an interview Wednesday how much Sci-Port Discovery Inc. owed in debt, but said that it was a \u201cbig number.\u201d Lamb also said none the members of the Sci-Port Board of Directors or Sci-Port Discovery Center Inc. will be involved with the new non-profit.<\/p>\n

The new non-profit must conclude an agreement with the City of Shreveport, though Sci-Port’s IMAX and Power of Play children’s\u00a0museum\u00a0will remain open pending city approval of the new arrangement.<\/p>\n

Gustavson said a full opening is expected this fall.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SHREVEPORT, La. \u2014 A Louisiana science centre and children’s\u00a0museum\u00a0that has been on financial life support and opened on a limited …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":167632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[52089,52088],"class_list":["post-167631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-art-and-culture","tag-community-foundation-of-north-louisiana","tag-sci-port-discovery-center","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}