March 13, 2009 Met Museum Plans Major Layoffs By RANDY KENNEDY NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/arts/design/13metr.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print The Metropolitan Museum of Art said Thursday that it would lay off more than a quarter of its merchandising staff, eliminating 74 jobs in addition to 53 already cut over the last year. It also warned that the worsening economy might force it to shrink its overall work force by 10 percent as many as 250 additional full- and part-time jobs before the summer, including jobs in curatorial and other pivotal departments. These steps are partly a reflection of the problems that the museums merchandising arm, which a year ago operated 23 stores in New York and around the country, had been facing even before the downturn. But the new round of layoffs also signals how deeply the downturn is hitting even the most prestigious and popular art institutions, like the Metropolitan. The museum has imposed a hiring freeze, halted merit salary raises and curtailed staff travel and entertainment as well as the use of temporary employees. But it said that prospective, significant, and long-term reductions in annual operating income from its endowment had made layoffs imperative. The endowment is estimated to have lost about $800 million, or 28 percent of its value, since last summer, when it was worth $2.9 billion. And that estimate does not include declines since Jan. 1. In a letter to members last month, the museums chairman, James R. Houghton, said, The Metropolitan Museum is a robust institution, but despite its manifest strengths has not been immune to the consequences of this turbulent economy. In a meeting on Thursday, the museums director, Thomas P. Campbell, told staff members that no departments would be excluded from the further reductions that are expected, affecting a staff of about 2,500 people, from curators to administrators to guards and maintenance workers. But the officials added that the cuts would not affect the hours that the museum remains open and that the museum would work to trim the staff to have the smallest effect on exhibitions, conservation and other core functions. Because the Metropolitan is so large and complex an organization, whose staff possess skill sets crucial to maintaining its buildings and collections successfully, such a contraction requires a deliberate and delicate process, which museum management, while acknowledging the urgent need for reductions, is committed to undertaking with the greatest care, the museum said in a statement. Harold Holzer, a spokesman, added in an interview on Thursday, The goal here is that the public will see no difference in the operations of the museum. Many other museums across the country are also retrenching in similar or more extreme ways, cutting budgets, staff and the kinds of expansion plans that seemed ubiquitous only a couple of years ago. Among the museums that have imposed layoffs are the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the High Museum in Atlanta, which has also reduced its directors salary. At the Metropolitan, the endowment, one of the largest in the country for a museum, pays for about a third of the museums $220 million operating budget. The loss to that budget is expected to be $2.2 million in the next fiscal year, and the decrease will continue past that fiscal year because of the way the museum, like many others, parcels out money from its endowment on the basis of a rolling average. Aside from the endowments losses, the museum will receive $1.7 million less in operating help from the city and has been told to expect another $2.4 million cutback in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. Mr. Holzer said those problems had been compounded by a decline in foreign visitors who account for 35 percent of the museums attendance and who spend more on souvenirs and tend to pay the full amount of the museums suggested $20 entrance fee. He said that after the first two quarters of this fiscal year, in which attendance was robust, the museum still hoped it might meet its goal of 4.3 million annual visitors. But it is no longer sure that it will do so, he said, even with highly anticipated exhibitions, like one of the work of Francis Bacon opening in May and another of treasures from ancient Afghanistan opening in June. The drop in attendance has hurt other sources of income like parking fees and money spent in the museums restaurants, Mr. Holzer said, adding that officials had also noticed a softening in membership renewals. In his letter, Mr. Houghton appealed to the public for support as the museum contends with a crisis that could last many months longer: It is stating the obvious yet urgently necessary to do so to acknowledge that now, more than ever, your attendance, your generosity, your understanding, and your enthusiasm for the Met are critically important to the future of this wonderful institution. ================================================= George Antunes Voice (713) 743-3923 Associate Professor Fax (713) 743-3927 Political Science Internet: antunes at uh dot edu University of Houston Houston, TX 77204-3011 *********************************** * POST TO [email protected] * *********************************** Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
