Photo by Vallø, courtesy Flickr
Hardly a week has gone by in past months without troubling news from the museum sector: layoffs, budget reductions, exhibition cancellations, deaccessions, admission price increases, and even some closings. Here’s a running roundup. (If we've missed something, please
let us know.)
June 29, 2009
Faced with an endowment that has fallen to $34 million from $46.5 million since last June, Oregon's Portland Art Museum reduces its 2010 fiscal-year budget to $12.1 million, from $13.4 million in 2009. Cost-cutting measures include letting go of five full-time staffers, a 10 percent reduction in non-salary operating expenses, a weeklong furlough for all full- and part-time staff, the continued vacancy of two key curatorial positions, and a jump in admission prices from $10 to $12.
June 26, 2009
The Philadelphia Museum of Art raises admission prices for the second time in two years, upping all entry fees by $2. The museum also plans to curtail its pay-as-you-wish policy from every Sunday to only the first Sunday of each month. In February, faced with an endowment that had shrunk by almost $100 million since July 2008, the museum announced a series of cost-cutting measures, including staff cuts, salary reductions, and exhibition deferments.
June 25, 2009
Chicago's Spertus Museum, a division of the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, will reduce its public hours down to only every other Sunday and for special events. According to Proximity Magazine, Spertus is also firing the majority of its staff and keeping only the director and preparator full time. A spokeswoman for the museum verified the hours reduction but would only confirm that "some changes have been made" to the staff.
June 23, 2009
The Metropolitan Museum of Art announces that it has finished a round of layoffs and voluntary retirements. Although the goal was a 10 percent reduction, the cuts have left the museum's staff 14 percent smaller, because more employees took buyouts than had been estimated. Savings from the layoffs amount to roughly $10 million — not enough to cover the losses in the 2010 operating budget, but close.
June 22, 2009
The Art Institute of Chicago eliminates 3 percent of its staff, or 22 employees from across the organization. Other cost-cutting measures implemented include a 10 percent pay cut for the director, weeklong unpaid furloughs for employees, and a salary freeze, as well as reduced public research hours at the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries.
June 18, 2009
The Guggenheim Museum cuts 8 percent of its full-time staff, letting go of nine people across departments and leaving 16 positions vacant. The reductions are a response to an 18 percent drop in the institution's endowment, to approximately $113 million, over the past nine months. The museum also cuts back on staff travel and other expenses, for a total reduction to the annual budget by $6 million, to $60 million. The exhibition schedule and operating hours remain unchanged.
May 27, 2009
In an effort to cut operating expenses, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts eliminates three of its 15 full-time positions and reduces the working hours of remaining full-time staff members by 20 percent. The museum says it will go ahead with the 15 installations and exhibitions planned for the 2010–11 fiscal year.
May 26, 2009
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, announces it has achieved a balanced budget for fiscal year 2009–10, reducing the budget from $20 million to $15.5 million. Measures necessary to implement the new plan include the cancelation of four planned exhibitions, staff reductions from 159 positions to 119, pay cuts for senior staffers and others, and the slashing of benefits.
May 22, 2009
The Baltimore Museum of Art announces it will furlough half its staff for two weeks, leave six vacant positions unfilled, and cut back on some smaller exhibitions in order to trim its budget by 6.5 percent, or just under $900,000. The museum also cancels its three-year-old ArtBlast festival, reduces its exhibition calendar, and extends pay and partial hiring freezes, while opening to the public an hour earlier Wednesday through Friday. The reductions bring the annual operating budget to $12.7 million.
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