Trustees of Reservations lays off 10% of staff in Mass.

The Trustees of Reservations laid off 29 workers across the state this week.

In an email, The Trustees CEO Katie Theoharides told employees the decision was difficult but necessary to reducing an ongoing multimillion dollar structural deficit for the land conservation and historic preservation nonprofit. She pointed to debt, inflation, supply chain issues and other factors in announcing the 10% workforce reduction.

Mary Detloff, director of public relations for The Trustees, said the organization significantly increased programing across the state during the pandemic. That led to an increase in operational revenue, but, Detloff said, “We also saw huge increases in expenses. And inflation hit us hard. The cost of supplies, and supply chain issues … I mean, all of those things hit us really hard.”

In her layoff email to employees, Theoharides writes: “We ramped up programming and hiring to meet this critical need. And while there is still a great need for our mission to protect special places and connect people to those special places, the operating model we built is not sustainable.”

Moving forward, Detloff said, the Trustees will scale back operations in some key areas.

A version of this story originally ran on New England Public Media.