By Cindi Andrews
The Cincinnati Enquirer

WEST END - The Museum Center survived the Tax Levy Review Committee Wednesday in the first leg of its quest for taxpayers' money.

The Museum Center wants to put a 0.2-mill levy on the March ballot, which would raise $3.6 million annually and cost the owner of a $100,000 home $5.89 more a year in property taxes.

The complex of museums - children's, history and natural history - and the Omnimax Theatre have never had an operating levy before, but dropping attendance and rising maintenance costs have prompted the request.

The Tax Levy Review Committee unanimously recommended Hamilton County commissioners put the levy on the ballot after digesting a review of the Museum Center by Maximus, an international consultant.

"The (Museum Center) can only cut expenditures so much before it changes its collection, preservation and educational mission into just that of a caretaker," Maximus' report said.

The museum needs help for only 10 years, president and CEO Douglass McDonald said - until it can build a large enough endowment of private donations to live off the interest.

The Museum Center was bringing in about as much money as it was spending until last year, when it made $10.1 million but spent $15 million. Officials blame the reversal partly on the Cincinnati riots and the national economic downturn, which combined to make attendance fall.

Also, the Museum Center is responsible for upkeep of Union Terminal, the former railway station it has occupied since 1990. This Cincinnati landmark needs $2 million worth of work annually for the next decade.

While the Museum Center is making its first operating request, voters are still paying off a 1986 bond issue to renovate Union Terminal for the museums. That levy, which costs less than $5 a year for the owner of a $100,000 home, expires in 2009.

E-mail candrews@enquirer.com