Kennedy Center Received $270 Million From Congress and Paid Its President $5+ Million Since 2016

When Congress first authorized the Kennedy Center in 1958, it was with the premise the facility would be self-sustaining and privately funded. It didn’t happen.

Since 2016, the Center has pulled in $270 million in federal funds. During this period, its president, Deborah Rutter, made $5.1 million. Our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com quantified these financial numbers from the Center’s IRS disclosures and conversations with their spokesperson.

The Kennedy Center is not a government agency, but, instead, an independent, non-profit, charitable organization under IRS section 501(c)(3).

In March 2020, the CARES Act coronavirus relief bill included a $25 million Kennedy Center earmark, $22 million of which went for payroll. Yet, days later, Rutter emailed employees announcing furloughs because, even with its COVID earmark infusion, “the Kennedy Center would run out of cash as early as July.”

We found that the Center’s net assets increased by $114 million since 2016. Even in the on-going pandemic, during 2020, the Center increased its net assets by $3.3 million.

In fiscal year 2020, taxpayers gave the Center around $78 million: COVID relief earmark ($25 million), FY2020 appropriation ($43.5 million), and grants from the Department of Education ($8 million), the National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs ($650,000), and the National Endowment for the Arts ($85,000).

In the FY2021 congressional appropriations, the Kennedy Center received $40.4 million: $26.4 million for “operation, maintenance, and security” and $14 million for “capital repair and restoration.”

President Trump initially defended the Kennedy Center’s $25 million earmark, only to critique its December $40 million Congressional set-aside (that he ultimately signed into law) saying the Kennedy Center was “not even open for business[.]”

The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.