As part of a drastic cost-cutting maneuver to lop some $2 million off the Magnes Museum’s budget, eight employees were laid off this week.
Among those departing is Susan Morris, the former executive director of the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley who now has the title of senior deputy director for special collections. Morris declined to comment for this story.
CEO Connie Wolf and the museum’s new board chairman, Warren Hellman, declined to name any other employees, stating instead that the cuts were made from the finance, membership and development, curatorial and programming departments.
Wolf, who is also the museum’s executive director, said she hoped the impact on museumgoers in Berkeley would be minimal, assuring that museum hours would not be altered during the current exhibitions, which run until Feb. 16. She was uncertain what would take place after that.
The layoffs represent more than 40 percent of the museum’s 19 employees and Hellman said they were split fairly evenly between those working in San Francisco and Berkeley. The Jewish Museum San Francisco and Judah L. Magnes Museum merged in January.
After the merger, the museum planned to build a new home in San Francisco’s South of Market district, but Hellman said this week that construction is between five and 10 years away. In the meantime, it is operating the old Judah L. Magnes Museum on Russell Street in Berkeley and has occasional shows on the first floor of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation’s building on Steuart Street.
Much responsibility for the content of the Magnes’ exhibits may land back in the hands of the man who established the museum.
Wolf said she is talking to Seymour Fromer, Judah L. Magnes founder and director emeritus, about coming back part time and assuming a more hands-on role. She declined to discuss Fromer’s salary, but noted that “he will be compensated.”
Said Fromer, “I’m working to make sure there’s a continuation of regularly scheduled exhibitions.”
He added that Hellman and Wolf had expressed “a commitment to have these exhibitions within a modest budgetary framework.”
Future exhibitions would rely more heavily on local artists and the museum’s large, existing collection, according to Fromer.
Wolf, however, said she could not ensure against the possibility of a museum hiatus such as the one that kept the Judah L. Magnes closed for much of the summer.
At the time of the museums’ January merger, Wolf said both organizations carried annual budgets of about $1 million a year, with the Judah L. Magnes saddled with $400,000 in debt and a $1.3 million mortgage for its possible future home on Allston Way in Berkeley.
Once combined, the museum’s budget swelled to roughly $3.7 million a year, including $900,000 in what Wolf characterized as “one-time merger costs.” These costs included “computer technology, human relations services, the whole range of infrastructure.”
At the time of the merger, Wolf added, both the Jewish Museum San Francisco and Judah L. Magnes’ budgets also were augmented because of their ongoing capital campaigns, which are now largely dormant.
The combined Magnes Museum will not record a loss this year, Wolf said, but that’s only because it utilized restricted funds given by private donors to offset an operating deficit. Wolf said this was an anticipated move, and donors gave permission for their gifts to be used in this manner, but she did not know how much money the museum is taking from these funds.
Hellman, however, said the Magnes was running up a “$2 million to $3 million annual deficit…a very large operating deficit.
“Basically, what we’re doing, which wasn’t a secret and nobody liked it that much, was spending out money from people’s pledges for the [building] campaign,” said Hellman, who assumed the board chairmanship in October.
“That isn’t great. I think pledges are not meant for annual operating expenses. I came on board saying you cannot run a $2.5 million deficit. Hopefully, better things will happen in the next few months. Right now, we’ve got to get our costs in line.”
The Magnes anticipates a revenue stream of $1.7 million in 2003 — though Hellman said he’d be more comfortable projecting $1 million or $1.2 million — and is adjusting its budget to match the expected income. In addition to the layoffs, Wolf said the museum would be working “soup to nuts to become leaner.”
Both Hellman and Wolf said today’s economically stagnant climate is a tough one for nonprofit, cultural institutions, and museums all over the nation have been pushed into making similar cutbacks.
Both also felt the Judah L. Magnes would have been forced to layoff employees even if the merger had not gone through, but Fromer disagreed.
“Maybe there would have been some contraction, but not this drastic. See, we always functioned on a very tight, shoestring budget. Our main emphasis was on collections and archiving and smaller exhibits,” he said.
“My main goal is to keep [the museum] alive and interesting and growing. We’re in a temporary downturn and can’t afford to give up on it. It’s an important cultural institution. Researchers come from all over to use this material.”