-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [marac-md] Historical society cuts staff, plans restructuring
Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 15:41:54 -0400
From: Nathaniel DeBruin <[log in to unmask]>
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MD Caucus Members;
 
     For those of you who may not have seen the article in the Baltimore Sun, please see the text below.  The chair of MARAC, Geof Huth, will be sending a letter to Dr. Emerson expressing our concern over this situation.
 
Nat M. DeBruin
MARAC MD Caucus Rep.
Lewis J. Ort Library
Frostburg State University
1 Stadium Drive
Frostburg, MD 21532
Phone: (301)687-3114

   <http://www.baltimoresun.com>

------------------------------------------------------------------------


   Historical society cuts staff, plans restructuring

Changes aimed at erasing $1.2 million budget deficit
By Glenn McNatt and Mary Carole McCauley
Sun Reporters
July 26, 2006

  From the cover

The Maryland Historical Society
</features/lifestyle/58898,0,7157088.venue?coll=bal-artslife-today>, the
state's oldest cultural institution, this week announced sweeping staff
cuts and a broad restructuring of departments, and hinted that it would
scale back future exhibitions as part of a plan to eliminate a $1.2
million operating deficit.

The staff reductions, expected to save between $500,000 and $600,000 a
year, involve about a dozen of the organization's 60 employees,
including the heads of its museum, publications and marketing departments.

The society's new director, W. Eric Emerson, said the changes were
needed to put the institution on a firm financial footing.

Emerson, who stepped into his position July 1, said he hoped to make up
the deficit through a combination of staff reductions, consolidation of
related departments and increased fundraising. His predecessor, Dennis
Fiori, resigned in December to become the head of the Massachusetts
Historical Society.

"We have to be more creative in the way we do things," Emerson said.
"I'm trying to get the staff to look at new ways of doing things where
they can be just as efficient with fewer people."

In addition to staff cuts, Emerson's plan calls for consolidating the
society's library, archives and museum departments, as well as
streamlining the education, publications and off-site museums components
into a single education outreach department.

Emerson, the former head of the South Carolina Historical Society, said
the restructuring will result in greater efficiency. "We had various
departments that competed for resources," he said. "I couldn't
understand why it wasn't all under a single umbrella."

Founded in 1844, the historical society houses extensive collections of
Maryland historic and cultural artifacts, and typically presents one
major exhibition a year, along with several smaller shows. The current
exhibition, The Gardener's Tale, a celebration of the silversmith's art,
initially was budgeted at about $300,000. That amount was cut by about
$100,000 after the budget crisis surfaced.

In recent years, the society, which has an annual operating budget of
about $4 million and an endowment of $18 million, received about
$165,000 from the state and $20,000 from the city. This year, the state
increased its contribution to $565,000 to enhance the society's
educational, arts and other programming. The society also relies upon
memberships and private donations to round out its budget.

In 2003, during Fiori's tenure, the society completed a $30 million
construction and renovation project on its building at 201 W. Monument
St. that doubled its space, updated its infrastructure and reinstalled
much of its collection.

For the past two years, however, the historical society has incurred a
substantial deficit, said Henry Stansbury, president of the board of
trustees. In 2005, the cumulative deficit was about $1.4 million, he said.

The society dipped into the unrestricted part of its endowment fund to
cope with a financial shortfall, said Rob Rogers, the society's chief
operating officer.

But this year's deficit was significantly larger than expected,
Stansbury said. "We knew we were going to have a deficit, but it was
couple of hundred thousand dollars higher than we anticipated."

A jump in utility costs, a drop in membership donations and unexpected
expenses associated with the search for a new director contributed to
the deficit.

"Operating costs have risen 20 percent to 30 percent, plus the
transition between directors required search-firm fees, candidate visits
and all the costs associated with change in leadership," Stansbury said.
The search for a new director cost about $100,000, he said.

Last year, the society sold its storage facility on Centre Street to the
Walters Art Museum
</features/lifestyle/56101,0,3618119.venue?coll=bal-artslife-today> for
$1.5 million, said Rogers. The proceeds from that sale were used to
replace the roof on the society's Keyser Library building and make other
repairs.

Stansbury also said the society didn't raise as much money last year as
it hoped, in part because it lacked a development director. He said a
new development director began work the same day Emerson arrived.

The deficit may force the society to scale back some previously
scheduled exhibitions. For example, a large exhibition about slavery in
Maryland, scheduled to open in February in collaboration with the
Maryland Institute College of Art
</entertainment/visitor/college/bal-hl-mica,0,1498617.story?coll=bal-artslife-today>

and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History
and Culture, may be downsized.

That show, titled At Freedom's Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland,
had a projected budget of about $800,000, about $200,000 of which was to
have been contributed by the historical society. The society has had
trouble raising funds for the exhibit, and if it can't raise enough,
Emerson said, it may have to offer a smaller exhibition.

The laid-off staffers were told last week that their jobs had been cut.
Some expressed anger at the abruptness of the action.

"We're calling it 'the massacre,'" says Holly Callahan, who, up until
Thursday, worked as a librarian two days a week.

"It's really hard to lose your job without warning. I think I can get
another job without too much difficulty, but I pay my mortgage with that
paycheck, and they gave us no notice. We all really liked the Maryland
Historical Society
</features/lifestyle/58898,0,7157088.venue?coll=bal-artslife-today>, and
we worked hard for them, but our loyalty wasn't returned."

Edith Coar, who had catalogued books for the library part-time for the
past 13 months, says her first indication of the cuts came when she saw
a colleague carrying plants from her office to her car.

"I'm 68, and I have some Social Security and a pension from the federal
government, but I'm going to have to cash some mutual funds to pay my
bills," Coar says.

Coar, like Callahan, thinks the public will have to wait longer for help
from the overburdened staff members remaining.

"The Maryland Historical Society
</features/lifestyle/58898,0,7157088.venue?coll=bal-artslife-today> is
an incredibly busy place," Callahan says, "and there are some very
important collections there for scholars. ...

"It's a really rich resource for people who write about history, and it
would be a shame if the public's access were limited because the board
cut the staff."

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