Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 27, 1991 TAG: 9102270593
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: By JEFF DeBELL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Officials declined to discuss the layoffs because the employees who will be affected had not been told.
The museum laid off four employees in September. At the same time, three other employees were placed on four-day work weeks and another moved herself voluntarily to part-time status.
Those cuts were said to save about $61,000 through January. Cuts approved Tuesday will bring the total to about $148,000 for fiscal 1991, according to Ruth Appelhof, museum director. The museum started the year with a budget of about $645,000.
Appelhof said the new cuts run throughout the budget, including her own contingency fund for travel, professional dues and the like.
When the latest cuts are implemented, she said, the museum will be left with "the essential core that's needed to run an accredited museum."
The staff currently stands at 11 full- and five part-time employees.
Like most other arts organizations in the area, the museum has been hit hard by the recession. State financial support has dropped to almost nothing, owing to the state's own income shortfalls, and there has been a concurrent decline in contributions from recession-hammered corporations.
The Arts Council of Roanoke Valley has laid off four of its five employees, and spending cutbacks at the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra include the decision not to retain its core of four full-time musicians after this season.
Professionals within the arts community say they expect the grim situation to last at least another year.
Despite the pain of the decisions made Tuesday, Appelhof said, the museum trustees should be credited with responding "quickly" to the crisis. She said the museum has sought and received a federal grant to help the museum restructure itself.
"We're not rolling over," she said. "We're preparing for a national crisis in the arts."
by CNB