Smithsonian Plans Layoffs to Cut $40-Million Deficit : Money: Some of the 6,600 workers at the institution’s museums and research facilities may lose their jobs next month.

For the first time in at least two decades, the Smithsonian Institution will lay off staffers this year because of projected budget shortfalls of as much as $40 million, the institution’s secretary announced Tuesday.

In a letter sent to the Smithsonian’s 6,600 employees, Secretary Robert McC. Adams said the first layoffs at the institution’s museums and research facilities could come next month.

“One-time solutions are no longer sufficient to close the deficit gap, and unless we can contain expenditures within available income, we cannot remain strong,” Adams said in the letter.

He would not say how many employees would be laid off. But Smithsonian spokeswoman Madeleine Jacobs said the cuts were not likely to affect certain core areas of Smithsonian work, such as research into biological diversity and the creation of the new National Museum of the American Indian.

“In those areas, we’ll try to provide for modest increases,” Jacobs said.

She compared the Smithsonian’s fight to maintain its research status to the struggle of a family to send a child to college.

“If you have a fixed amount of income and certain fixed expenses, you have to juggle your expenditure to make sure your most important goals are met,” she said. “If you want to send your kid to college, you may have to put off buying a new car or repairing an old refrigerator.”

The Smithsonian’s money comes from two main sources: the federal government--in the form of federal appropriations, contracts and grants--and its own trust funds.

On the trust side, the Smithsonian expects about a $10-million shortfall in revenues from its museum shops, membership programs, mail-order catalogue, press and food services.

On the federal side, Congress is expected to cut the institution’s budget request of $364.7 million by up to $30 million, Adams said in his letter.

Adams said cuts have been a fact of life since 1990, when “the economy began to deteriorate.” In the last three years, the institution has been forced to make major cuts, he said.

“We have had to reduce funding to scholarly studies, special exhibitions, collections acquisition, educational outreach and fellowships, even though they are central to the mission of the institution,” he said.

Staff travel also has been limited and a hiring freeze is in effect, he said.

The layoffs are more drastic than previous measures but will be targeted to areas in which they will cause the least problems, Jacobs said.

“It will be targeted and none of these cuts will be just a mindless, across-the-board kind of cutting,” she said. Some cuts may be achieved through retirements, she added.

The Smithsonian is a 146-year-old museum, education and research complex.