Wichita ? With Sedgwick County bailing out Old Cowtown again, the museum board plans to ask that it take over the struggling living history museum within the next 30 days.

The museum, which opens for the season today, has a $300,000 deficit resulting in part from a decline in visitors, fewer donations and sponsors, and rising utility bills. At times last summer, the museum was as many as 120 days behind in paying its bills.

This week the Sedgwick County Commission authorized spending $66,000 to help pay the museum’s bills through April. Last fall the county gave the museum $190,000 to make up its 2005 budget shortfall.

The bailouts were additions to public money the museum receives anyway. About 60 percent of its $1.4 million annual budget comes from city and county taxpayers, with admissions, membership and donations making up the rest.

Tim Holt, president of the Cowtown board, said the latest contribution from the county will keep the museum open until it can start receiving money from ticket sales. General adult admission has been increased by 50 cents this year, to $7.75.

“We will make payroll, and we’re covered through mid-April,” Holt said.

Ben Sciortino, the Sedgwick County Commission chairman who also serves on the Cowtown board, said he isn’t sure what the county will do.

“I am still believing in the potential of Cowtown,” Sciortino said. “I believe it is a diamond in the rough that with the right blending of tourism and history could make Wichita a desirable destination place, not just in the United States, but the world.

“But I’ll be darned if I am going to get the other commissioners to pour money into it, especially given our other priorities.”

Holt said that when the Cowtown board approved the $1.4 million budget last fall, it knew the museum would have a $300,000 deficit. He said the board approved the budget because they thought the county would provide additional money.

Carolyn Conley and Michael Coup, other board members, said that’s how they had understood it as well, but Sciortino said that wasn’t so.

Meanwhile, Jan McKay, the museum’s executive director, said she’s confident the museum can make up the deficit in ways other than county funding.

“We are doing cash projections to see how we get through the next few months,” she said.

A new visitor center that opened last year already is providing additional rental income.

“I’m optimistic about this year,” McKay said. “We have great events that people want to see. We have people signing up online for memberships and giving us donations. We are making it easier for people to join and contribute.”

A consultants’ study released last week recommended either that millions be spent on fixing Cowtown or that it be sold.