The Brooklyn Museum stated Friday that it could quickly lower greater than 40 workers — between 10 and 13 p.c of its work drive — to alleviate the pressures of a monetary deficit that’s projected to succeed in $10 million by the top of its fiscal yr in June.
Anne Pasternak, the museum’s director, stated in a letter that will probably be despatched to the employees members on Friday afternoon that the museum was “experiencing robust headwinds: inflation has dramatically impacted our working finances, including tens of millions of {dollars} to on a regular basis prices and outpacing funding.” She wrote that the pressures have been “additional compounded by gradual post-pandemic attendance restoration throughout the sector.”
Along with the layoffs, officers stated that senior management will take wage cuts of 10 to twenty p.c; the annual variety of exhibitions can be diminished to a median of 9 from a median of 12; and weeknight occasions with low attendance or inconsistent funding can be canceled.
“Extra merely put, our bills have grown extra quickly than our income,” the letter stated. “This requires adjustments to our program, operations, and the dimensions of our staff, to assist set the course for longer-term sustainability.”
The upcoming layoffs will happen throughout the museum’s departments, with each union and nonunion jobs set to be lower. They would be the establishment’s first main cuts since 2020, when it laid off practically 30 employees at the beginning of the pandemic.
Union leaders representing workers on the Brooklyn Museum stated that they have been involved with the timing of those new cuts, which observe a sequence of costly occasions and exhibitions celebrating the museum’s 2 hundredth anniversary, together with a renovated restaurant, an exhibition dedicated to gold and a rebranding marketing campaign.
“We’re dismayed that the museum would select to stability the finances on the backs of union members,” stated Wilson Souffrant, president of Native 1502, a division of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Staff.
On Wednesday, the union despatched a cease-and-desist letter to the museum to attempt to stop officers from shedding the staff it represents with out adequate negotiations or advance discover.
In recent times, the Brooklyn Museum has tried to rebuild its viewers after the pandemic led to a drop in attendance. (Common admission is free, although the museum recommends a steered contribution of $20 for grownup guests.)
Final yr included exhibitions dedicated to celebrities just like the filmmaker Spike Lee and the musician Paul McCartney; it additionally staged a present that includes the artwork assortment of Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz.
Within the letter, Pasternak stated that the museum’s exhibitions had attracted audiences and that the establishment had nearly doubled its board, elevated its endowment and each its contributed and earned revenues. However bills have been nonetheless outstripping revenues. Throughout a employees assembly on Friday, the museum stated that its complete compensation for workers had risen by $17 million within the final 10 years.
The museum additionally turned a goal of activists after 34 folks have been arrested at a pro-Palestinian rally held on its grounds final spring. Protesters had assaulted safety employees and broken paintings whereas calling for officers to divest from Israel. A bunch of demonstrators have been later arrested on hate crime fees for vandalizing the properties of Pasternak and different museum leaders.
In its letter saying the layoffs, the museum stated it was nonetheless on observe to start its 2026 renovation mission for its Arts of Africa assortment.
However Pasternak and different leaders wrote that layoffs had change into unavoidable: “Wages comprise our largest operational line merchandise — roughly 70% of our working finances — and a monetary realignment sadly requires reductions in our staff.”