Revising Previous Estimates, the Metropolitan Museum of Art Now Says It May Lose Up to $150 Million as It Lays Off More Than 80 Employees

The Metropolitan Museum of Art laid of 81 employees today as
museum leadership announced to staff that the institution may face
a staggering $150 million shortfall.

The Met, which will likely remain closed until at least July, is
also instituting pay cuts to executive-level employees,
including 20 percent salary reductions for director Max Hollein and
president and CEO Daniel H. Weiss. Eleven other museum officers
will take 10 percent salary cuts.

Days after the museum closed in response to the coronavirus crisis on March
13, it said it was bracing for a $100 million deficit based on
projected lost revenue, reduced fundraising, and a hit to the
museum’s endowment. But as big as that number is, Weiss now
believes it underestimated the financial impact of an extended
closure.

“As we learn more about the global impact of this crisis, and as
we develop plans for reopening in light of this new information,
our estimates of the budget shortfall are now between $100 and $150
million through the fiscal year 2021,” Weiss and Hollein wrote in
an email to museum staff obtained by Artnet News.

Salary and benefits eat up more than 65 percent of the museum’s
annual budget, according to the email.

The eliminated positions come from the museum’s visitors’
services and retail departments. The staff will remain on
payroll through June 6, and receive health benefits through June
30. The museum is also introducing a voluntary retirement
program for employees aged 60 or older with at least 15 years of
service. Salaries for all other non-union staff are guaranteed
through July 4.

But Weiss and Hollein said even those measures may not be enough
to stave off future downsizing. “Unfortunately, at this point we
anticipate that additional reductions in staffing costs will be
considered,” they wrote in the email.

Until this point, the museum had avoided the furloughs and
layoffs that other museums—such as SFMOMA, the Museum of Contemporary
Art in LA, and the Museum of Fine
Arts in Boston, among others—have instituted. In
New York, the Met now joins MoMA PS1, the New Museum, the Whitney
Museum of American Art, and the Queens Museum in making staff
cuts.

“Our two primary objectives continue to be doing all that we can
to support the health and safety of our community and to protect
the long-term financial health of the museum,” Weiss said in a
statement issued to ARTnews. “The
arts and culture community is facing a crisis of unprecedented
magnitude in our lifetimes.

The post Revising Previous Estimates, the Metropolitan
Museum of Art Now Says It May Lose Up to $150 Million as It Lays
Off More Than 80 Employees appeared first on artnet
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