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Museum Of Fine Arts To Make Cuts, Freeze Salaries

The Museum of Fine Arts Boston is laying off 33 people, or four percent of its staff, and freezing salaries across the board in next year's budget. Some top officials also taking voluntary pay cuts.

The MFA says while its attendance numbers are up, its revenues are down — mainly in the shop, in the restaurant, in admissions and membership.

Fundraising is also sluggish, and the museum's endowment has dropped by a third, says spokesperson Dawn Griffin.

"Like so many museums around the country, we needed to assess our budgets for the upcoming fiscal year and make cuts in areas that had decreased over the past year due to the economic downturn," Griffin says.

But Griffin says the museum still expects to finish its massive new American Wing as planned next year because it had raised that project's funds before the recession hit.

This program aired on April 3, 2009. The audio for this program is not available.

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Margaret Evans Senior Editor
Margaret Evans was formerly a senior editor in WBUR's newsroom.

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