"Museum Ethics and Cutbacks" by Steve Miller, Director, Morris Museum

"Museum Ethics and Cutbacks" by Steve Miller, Director, Morris Museum
 
It would appear these are the most difficult times American museums have ever encountered.  Of course, while the Great Depression comes to mind, no one in a position of museum authority from that era is around to provide comparisons.  I suspect, for various reasons, things are worse in our field now.  There are more museums per capita.  Taking into the account the historic value of the dollar, they cost more to run.  And, they are far more in the limelight than they were sixty plus years ago.  
 
Not a day goes by without hard-copy media and Internet reports on budget cuts and predictable layoffs and operating reductions.  The list of affected museums is long and getting longer.  Size does not matter.  It is hard to predict where we are in the unwinding of this mess but if it is not the beginning, it is not the end either.  Moreover, no one knows how soon museums will be able to reverse their losses once the economy improves.  It will take awhile. 
 
I used to tell my students that we may be living in the most exciting times for museums.  While things are indeed exciting at the moment, it is excitement I could do without. (Personally I thought the ‘60s and ‘70s were the most revolutionary years for museums and there was no little excitement then.)
 
Ethical considerations swirl during times of “retrenching” or “downsizing” or “cutting back” or “right-sizing” or whatever other term is appropriate.   I have always moved museums forward, even growing a couple of them substantially.  Setting an opposite course takes getting used to.  I have been director of the Morris Museum, Morristown, NJ for eight years.   Last summer we began addressing income challenges.  It was a group effort involving the senior staff, designated trustees and me. 
 
My dual goals have been to sustain public service and staff morale while addressing fiscal realities in an ethical manner.  Museums are essentially legislative operations with scores of internal complications and special interests.  Setting change-agendas is always a revealing exercise as one navigates a museum through new permutations. 
 
Last fall, everyone had high ideals and broadly democratic feelings about what should be done to continue the museum’s best programs and keep valued staff.  In time, during deliberations about cut-backs it was clear that positions and salaries would have to take some sort of hit.  The question was what would those hits be?  Layoffs?  Salary reductions?  Program eliminations?
 
As the director, I decided early on to keep as many staff positions as possible.  If I had to cut salaries, or hours, or both, that was preferable to personnel loss.  The Morris Museum has a great staff.  As anyone in the museum field knows, no one pursues this line of work for the money and that is certainly the case at my institution.  I have a hard-working and dedicated group.  Certainly some positions are perhaps more critical than others but not many.  I believe cost-cutting should start at the top, and first.  The AIG syndrome shouldn’t apply in the nonprofit sector.
 
An excellent recent IME List-Serv question was discussed about “brain drain” as a result of museum downsizing.  It is a valid point and one to be considered when facing new financial limitations.  As I noted previously, it has been my desire not to lose any staff.  But, now that salaries have been reduced, in a three-tiered plan (lower paid staff take lower cuts, high paid staff take higher cuts), I could see some people leaving for other positions.  A cold-hearted business type would ask, where are they going to go?   There are no jobs.  Yes there are, there are just fewer. 
 
Good professionals have a better chance of new employment than entry-level applicants or those looking for work who have no museum experience.  As for consultants, we may see more of them as people are laid-off.  Frankly, I have no concerns for the peripheral consultants who have been bobbing around for years getting paid lots of money to tell museum trustees and others what internal qualified staff already knows.  (This editorial comment aside, I should note there are some very good consultants, some of whom I have used and are close friends.)       
 
There will be some “brain-drain” as people leave the field.  But, how many brains do we need?  Museums attract some pretty bright people.  Actually, maybe the “brain –drain” will simply siphon off people who were never really dedicated museum professionals to begin with.  I’ve know a few and frankly they will be no loss.  Some brain-drain may happen with early retirements or reductions in duties.    
 
Another question posed relates to how ethical is has been for museums to expand only to find themselves in financial trouble now.  This is a tough idea to confront because if a museum expanded both its physical plant and endowment, with every expectation to have the latter help cover the former, than they are not really to blame for an economic fiasco not of their own making.  If, on the other hand, they expanded with the expectation that the earned income would cover the additional operating costs, that was foolish.
 
Finally, perhaps there are some ethical questions that trustees need to confront.  What is their role in these times of economic difficulty?  How much responsibility do they hold for the well-being of the museum they govern?  I predict more than a few nonprofits will see trustees quit.  Other trustees may see institutional failure as a natural fact of life.  Great and dedicated trustees will knuckle down and do their best to help assure the survival and health of “their” museums.  
       
Of course, I could be entirely wrong about the impact and longevity of the effects of this financial tsunami (as some call it).  Maybe it will be short-lived and when things turn around museums will suddenly be inundated with support from corporations, foundations, government agencies and individuals.  One can only hope.