Toward substantiation of budget-funding of modern Ukrainian repertory theater

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the problem of finding ways to fully justify the budget support of the contemporary Ukrainian repertory theaters as one of the strategic directions for their further survival and development. The work has proved that the theater of this kind is a public socio-cultural institution, serving to educate, develop, communicate and go for a new level of propaganda and awareness of the national self-identity of the people, engaged in it. However, the theater also acts as a business entity, creating jobs, paying taxes, supporting restaurant-hotel-tourist and other kinds of businesses that provide various related services, acting as an infrastructure-creating component. The repertory theater as an institution is an integral part of a more extended institution – the state. The latter should provide financial support to repertory theaters which are legislatively regarded to be non-profit organizations. Experience shows that the support is usually rendered with whatever funds remain. The theater is financed in the last turn with the remainder of the state funds, because theaters are referred to the group of loss-making institutions. Such a policy is vicious, since the author of this publication has proved that in fact the theater performs a very important function of a recreation space. The theater restores the productive resource of the state (region) – the human capital of both a person and society. The present publication for the first time proposes approaches to a direct estimation of possible losses in the gross domestic product incurred by the state (region) when it neglects the financial support of its repertory theaters. The work proves that: the repertory theater is not a planned unprofitable business entity; the most urgent task is to develop a technique for measuring the contribution of the theater to the state or regional economy; the theater has every reason to claim a certain portion of the income earned by it for the state or a region; the theater has every reason to rely on a more favorable fiscal policy of the state or regional authorities, which would encourage it to work more efficiently.