Mike Boehm reports on the progress being made at LA MoCA to bring back the endowment to the levels existing before the museum started spending its capital on exhibitions. The museum now runs on a $16m annual budget down from $25m and has been able to generate cash for the endowment:

The decision to put $4 million of the surplus into the endowment brings the fund to $18.5 million, less than two years after the museum’s meltdown, coupled with the 2008 stock market collapse, had reduced it to $5 million. But MOCA still has along way to go. The board is committed to restoring the endowment to $38 million, which is where it stood a decade ago, before the borrowing to fund exhibitions began.

An investigation by the state attorney general’s office found last year that those borrowings violated rules against spending endowment funds in ways the donors had not authorized.

Of the $4 million restored to the endowment, $2 million came from Broad, in keeping with his pledge to help rebuild the endowment by matching any other cash infusions until $30 million has been raised. Broad has kicked in $6.25 million of his $15-million endowment pledge. He also is providing $3 million a year — $15 million total — to underwrite exhibitions.

Leaner Museum of Contemporary Art is Flush with Cash (Los Angeles Times)