The Brooklyn Museum has delayed the impending layoffs of almost 50 employees as it works to secure additional funding from the New York City Council.
A total of 47 union and non-union employees who had been slated to be laid off on March 9 will keep their jobs for at least another week, museum director Ann Pasternak said in a March 6 all-staff email, after council members said the body might provide more money in the coming fiscal year.
“We take the potential of more funding seriously and are allowing time to learn more about this possibility,” Pasternak wrote, adding that the deadline for layoffs has been extended to March 16. “During this time, we hope to receive formal, written notification regarding this funding, including key details about any restrictions as well as the timing for distribution.”
The delay was first reported by Hyperallergic.
Negotiations are ongoing between union leaders, museum executives, and the City Council, sources told Brooklyn Paper on Friday, but the council has tentatively proposed an additional $2.5 million for the museum in Fiscal Year 2026, which begins on July 1.
That would not close the $10 million budget deficit the Brooklyn Museum is facing, but it could “at least buy some time for the museum to try to find other funding and for the parties, the unions, to meet with the museum to figure out ways to deal with the museum’s deficit,” said Maida Rosenstein, Director of Organization at UAW Local 2110.
The Brooklyn Museum did not immediately return a request for comment.
Pasternak informed employees of the budget deficit and the layoffs on Feb. 7. The same day, in a public letter posted on the museum’s website, she said the museum would cut back its annual exhibitions, end some weeknight events, alter the schedule of the its beloved First Saturdays program — which is on pause until May — and cut about 10% of its staff. Senior leaders, she said, would also take a pay cut of up to 20%.
Approximately 19 of the affected workers are part of District Council 37 Local 1502, and 21 by UAW Local 2110.
Elizabeth St. George, assistant curator of decorative arts and design at the Brooklyn Museum and the chair of the museum’s UAW Local 2110 contingent, was one of the employees slated to be laid off.
Getting the news was “very scary,” she said.
“To work in arts and culture, you earn very small wages,” she said. “There isn’t a lot of runway for people if something like this happens. That’s where my mind immediately went, was a deep concern for staff who were going to be affected, knowing what the financial implications for this were going to be.”
Negotiating with the museum since then has been frustrating, she said.
Union leaders almost immediately filed grievances against the museum for violating union contracts, which require 30 days notice before layoffs or reorganization.
At a Feb. 28 hearing before the City Council’s Committee on Civil Service and Labor, DC37 executive director Henry Garrido said the museum informed union leaders about the layoffs on Feb. 5, two days before they told the full staff.
“The museum counsel told our staff that the museum had lost more than $11 million in Fiscal Year 2024 and that they were on track to lose another $10 million in Fiscal Year 2025 and they claimed they had no choice but to implement layoffs,” Garrido said.
He said museum executives had refused to engage with the union’s proposals to implement furloughs or other cost-saving measures in order to avoid layoffs, and rebuffed requests to wait until after the next city budget is finalized in July, lest the council decide to allocate more funding.
“Even if the City Council did not put up all of the money … if we had a way to reduce the $10 million to say $6 million, then perhaps you didn’t have to lay off 47 people,” he said. “Perhaps you could reduce that to 20. And then we could have worked to try to make that from 20 to zero.”
St. Clair said she was feeling “hopeful” about the negotiations on Friday.
“We were able to [put enough of a spotlight] on this in the press, and in the community, who reached out to their representatives and reached out to the director to let them know how important the Brooklyn Museum is,” she said. “That feels very hopeful, that there’s so much support, and that because of that support, we might be able to actually solve this problem.”
‘We must fight to preserve every good-paying union job in New York City’
In FY2025, the City Council and the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs gave the museum more than $10 million, said Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, chair of the council’s Committee on Civil Service and Labor, at the Feb. 28 hearing.
The city’s subsidy to the museum has grown from $6.7 million in FY2022 to $8.5 million in FY2025, added DCLA commissioner Laurie Cumbo. Most of that subsidy supports the salaries of the museum’s DC37 employees.
Still, city funding accounts for only 20% of the Brooklyn Museum’s total expenses. The other 80% come from other sources, Cumbo said, and those sources are strained – many philanthropies are shifting away from funding arts, and federal funding has become uncertain.
While DCLA, which supports dozens of museums across the city, knew the museum was implementing cost-saving measures, it did not know how serious the situation had become.
“In the long run, the museum’s leadership prioritized the long-term health of their institution,” Cumbo said. “They have a solid plan for putting the museum back on firm financial footing.”
De La Rosa, though, questioned whether the museum had done all it could to avoid layoffs — suggesting it could start charging a small fee for its usually-free programs.
“I would also argue that while it is laudable that the museum wants to continue to be accessible, and I firmly support that decision, there are also [47] workers that now have to go come and not provide for their families,” she said.
Many of the city’s museums and cultural institutions are still recovering financially from the COVID-19 pandemic, said Council Member Crystal Hudson, who represents Prospect Heights, where the museum is located, at the Feb. 28 hearing. It’s New Yorkers and constituents who bear the brunt of those financial struggles, she said, whether they are left without programs previously offered by museums or are laid off for lack of funding.
She told Garrido she was willing to work with the unions and the museum to ensure conversations about furloughs, and other potential solutions continued.
“At a time when we are facing an affordability crisis in New York City, we must fight to preserve every good-paying union job in our city,” she said. “ … In order to move forward, the museum must secure the funding it needs in order to avoid these layoffs in order to protect jobs and preserve our city’s rich cultural heritage.”
