Her Majesty's Theatre, the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery and the Eureka Centre will all have funding cut as part of a broader council initiative to reduce operating costs.

City of Ballarat chief executive officer Richard Hancock would not say how much the attractions stood to lose but said the council would pursue alternative funding options to ensure they were no worse off.

The three attractions cost ratepayers about $1.5 million annually. But a former Her Majesty's board chairman warned any funding cuts could reduce the standard of arts in the city.

Mr Hancock said budget allocations for the three attractions remained unchanged for the next four years. However, he said the council would ultimately pursue funding options such as sponsorship, government grants, philanthropic donations and business partnerships to

reduce council's net contribution.

"I'm quite conscious of them in the sense that if I look across the council organisation they have reasonably high net costs themselves when I compare it to other parts of the organisation," Mr Hancock said.

"It's difficult to say what I would like to reduce it (funding) by except that I recognise that it does need to be reduced..."

The cuts come after a feasibility study last year found up to $4.5 million was needed to fund stage two of the Eureka Centre development. Former Her Majesty's board chairman Graeme Vendy disagreed with council's funding plan, saying the theatre had failed to achieve sufficient

revenue from outside sources in the past.

"I believe that council, if they want Ballarat to retain its image as a multi-faceted city of arts and sports ... the support is totally necessary."

Royal South Street Society chief executive officer Peter Bowler said the funding costs would not affect the group's free use of the theatre for 10 weeks a year.

Ballarat Fine Art Gallery director Gordon Morrison, Her Majesty's Theatre director Janice Haynes and Eureka Centre

operations manager Ron Egeberg declined to comment.