Buffeted by a continuous drop in visitors, the Science Museum of Minnesota is restructuring, cutting 43 full-time employees — or 13% of its staff — while reducing its $38 million general operating budget by $7 million.
Notices went out to impacted staff members on Wednesday and an all-staff meeting is scheduled for Thursday.
“We have some levels that are more affected than others, but the (lay offs) are throughout the museum,” said Alison Brown, the museum’s president and chief executive officer, in a phone interview Wednesday. A vice president of museum experience is retiring, she noted, and his position will not be filled.
“We’re not alone in facing these challenges,” Brown added. “Museums nationwide are experiencing unprecedented change, and successful institutions are those who adapt thoughtfully and decisively. We’re competing in a different world now. People are looking for immersive experiences. And we have to compete against the couch. People like to stay home.”
The restructuring will consolidate the museum’s operations from four management areas down to three, a realignment that museum officials called necessary given a 6-16% decline in museum attendance nationally since the outset of the pandemic in 2020 and a major increase in at-home entertainment.
The drop in attendance at the Science Museum, which was founded in 1907 and has been located on Kellogg Boulevard in downtown St. Paul since 1999, has been especially acute. “We’re down about 30%,” Brown said. “Our attendance this year is down 13% from June 30, 2024.”
To make ends meet over the course of the past five years, the museum has withdrawn some $15 million from its endowment, reducing its total endowment to $35 million.
Traveling exhibit revenue ‘almost completely gone’
Brown said the museum has also drawn revenue in the past by curating traveling exhibits for other museums around the country, and that revenue source is “almost completely gone. We had $1.5 million to $2 million in revenue from that.”
A Texas museum “pulled out at the last minute” after expressing concern about a traveling exhibit on skin — the largest organ of the human body — as potentially being perceived as diversity and equity-related. The exhibit, which focused on animal skin as well as human skin, “is a very STEM-related learning experience that’s joyful for families,” Brown said.
“We’ve had to make some hard decisions, because we have to balance our budget,” she added. “None of these things are easy to do. It’s a challenging time in the museum field. It’s not just us. Half of museums have not recovered to where they were before the pandemic. Since the pandemic, more people stay home.”
Despite cutting some 18% of its budget and more than 10% of its staff, the museum will continue to maintain paid professional actors on staff as part of its “Science Live” programming, which hosts a “live” dinosaur experience and other shows. Brown said visitors can still expect quality exhibits and programs, despite the belt-tightening.
Following a recent labor drive, about two-thirds of museum employees in 2023 joined the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, which represents their collective bargaining rights. In a written statement, museum officials said the lay offs were in keeping with the inaugural labor agreements, which were ratified this year.
“We notified them yesterday,” Brown said.
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