Museums May Feel Ax Today : Budget: If Board of Supervisors OKs cuts, LACMA and Natural History Museum will face loss of millions.

Two Los Angeles County cultural institutions, the Museum of Art and the Natural History Museum, have been waiting for the county’s budgetary ax to fall. Today may be the day.

If the county Board of Supervisors approves proposed budget cuts in today’s scheduled meeting, the Museum of Art will lose about 11% of its $18-million county budget, resulting in the elimination of 35 of 162 budgeted positions for county employees. The Natural History Museum will be forced to trim 17.7% from its $15-million county budget and reduce its 147-person county staff by 42 positions. In addition, both museums may be required to close an additional day each week or close galleries on a rotating basis.

The cuts have been proposed in the wake of the county’s $833-million budget shortfall, largely resulting from a recently adopted state budget that slashed payments to local governments. In attempting to accommodate the shortfall, county Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon has recommended eliminating 4,200 county jobs, more than 5% of the total work force, and reducing programs.

The Board of Supervisors on July 29 approved the first stage of expected rollbacks, but the full extent of the cuts is still in question.

County money typically pays for about half of the Museum of Art’s operating budget and salaries for about half of the museum’s employees; the rest comes from privately raised funds. The museum’s total operating budget for 1991-92 was $31 million.

Museum administrators have determined the number of positions to be cut in order to reduce its county budget by the required amount, according to Pam Jenkinson, LACMA’s public information officer. In the initial reductions made two months ago, the Museum of Art was forced to freeze 10 vacant positions. Twenty-five additional county employees from all departments have been targeted for layoffs by LACMA Deputy Director Ronald B. Bratton. No employees have been notified of pending terminations, however, and a final decision will not be made until incoming director Michael Shapiro arrives in mid-October, she said.

It is unlikely that private money will be found to save any of the jobs at LACMA, Bratton said. “We are looking at all aspects of our private support, and we can’t finalize our private budget until we have the public budget,” he said, “but there isn’t much room for private funds to fill major gaps in the public budget.”

Most of the total loss to the museum’s county budget will come out of salaries, but programs will have to be reduced or restructured for a smaller staff. One possibility, proposed by Dixon, is to close the museum one weekday in addition to Mondays, when LACMA is currently closed. Museum administrators will propose an alternate plan of closing galleries on a rotating basis on Tuesdays through Fridays, Jenkinson said.

The Museum of Natural History is likely to sustain even more severe losses if the Board of Supervisors approves the proposed cuts. The vast museum in Exposition Park was directed to make an initial cut in its county budget this summer, according to Catherine Krell, deputy director of marketing and public affairs. That reduction required the loss of 24 positions.

Currently under consideration is a proposal for an additional budget cut, entailing the loss of 18 additional positions. The museum also has about 135 employees paid by a private foundation.

There is no possibility that the jobs can be saved by the foundation, Krell said, because its resources “have already been cut to the bone.”

The Natural History Museum’s programs are currently functioning on spare budgets, so cuts must come from salaries, she said. The museum has identified “position equivalents” that are likely to be cut, but no specific employees have been targeted to lose their jobs, she said. No personnel decisions will be made until the Board of Supervisors determines the museum’s budget, Krell said, “because, in our experience, these things change during the process of discussion.”

As at LACMA, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to maintain current programs with a sharply reduced staff. Of utmost concern at the Natural History Museum is an educational outreach program in the public schools. “That is our top priority, and we are struggling to hang on to it,” Krell said.