The Carnegie Museum of Natural History has eliminated the positions of 11 staffers and ended its long-running Live Animal Encounter program.
Museum of Natural History director Gretchen Baker announced the cuts Friday in an all-staff meeting. In an audio recording of the announcement obtained by WESA, Baker said the cuts are meant to address “a persistent budget challenge.”
The cuts affected both full- and part-time workers.
Four of the positions were eliminated from the marketing departments of the museums of Art and Natural History, where the total number of employees will shrink from 10 to six. And two part-time positions were eliminated in the Natural History museum’s reference library.
The Live Animal Encounter program brought museum visitors up-close with a cast of a more than a dozen birds, invertebrates, small mammals and reptiles.
In an emailed statement, a museum spokesperson wrote that the cuts are "part of a strategic plan to focus [the museum's] resources for greater impact."
On the recording, Baker said the budget problem was due at least in part to the loss this year of a “significant operating grant” that the museum had received for many years.
She identified the cuts as the latest in a series of changes the museum has made this year to get the most out of its budget.
“Almost every department has been impacted in these decisions,” she said.
Baker said the work done by staffers who held the eliminated positions would be spread among remaining employees. She said the museum would work with the staff and students of The Andy Warhol Museum’s Warhol Academy to replace digital content previously produced by the marketing department. (The Warhol is another of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, along with the Carnegie Science Center.)
Baker said the Natural History museum’s reference library will no longer catalogue new titles. Instead it will work with the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and University of Pittsburgh to provide access to those titles, and focus internally on its archives.
She said the museum was working to find new homes for the animals from Live Animal Encounter, also known as "animal ambassadors."
The 2024 budget of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh is about $55.5 million.
Some 400 Carnegie Museums workers are members of the United Museum Workers union, part of the United Steelworkers union. The union signed its first contract in May 2023.
