July is going to be a waiting game for those that manage funding at the Newberry Opera House. But it is a waiting game of the best sort.

Recently, the South Carolina Arts Commission selected the Newberry Opera House as a grant recipient for $10,708 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The Opera House was one of 33 arts organizations in the state selected to receive funds to help preserve jobs in the nonprofit arts sector that are being threatened by the economic downturn.

The arts commission is dispensing $314,109 in all. But the commission is not the only agency charged with dispensing these funds, and the Opera House is also in the running for a same-sourced grant from the National Endowment of the Arts. Since the funds come from the same source, the Recovery Act, the local group cannot accept more than one.

“I am right now operating under the assumption we will take it,” said Deborah Smith, executive director of the Opera House, of the South Carolina arts grant.

The commission has a lot of experience granting funds to the Newberry Opera House as the organization is a frequent winner of the commission’s biennial grants. Scoring well on those applications, only returning grant applicants were considered, was a factor in how favorably the commission viewed each organization’s grant application, Smith explained.

However, organizations were able to ask for up to $15,000 to provide for salaries, fringe benefits, fees for artists and other contract personnel.

Smith says the commission has been “very understanding” about delaying the timeline on the Opera House’s response to the grant offer. If the Opera House is offered more through the NEA’s program, the commission’s alloted funds will go to another arts organization that is waiting in line.

No matter which agency the money is funnelled through, Smith says the Opera House would “use this to perpetuate a job that is already on staff.”

The Opera House employs four full-time people. Those are: the box office manager, the technical director, Smith and her assistant. The lighting and sound directors are nearly full-time, Smith says. She explains that the payroll at the Opera House has a “heavy tilt” toward technical labor. But there are five more part-time employees that work various hours in the box office.

Smith says the grant “helps us pay for somebody that we are in absolute need of.”

The local grant writers should hear of the results with the NEA request by August. Smith says the organization, in anticipation of favorable grant results, planned a budget adjustment session in September already.

The commission says that the grant distributions it was able to do in South Carolina should help secure 61 staff jobs and 78 contract positions in the non-profit arts community.