Photo by NCinDC
The mandatory federal budget cuts that went into effect earlier this year will start eating into the Smithsonian Institution next month, Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough told Congress today. In prepared testimony to the House Oversight Committee, Clough told lawmakers that beginning May 1, the Smithsonian will have to start cutting back on the amounts it spends on various functions, including maintenance jobs, gallery acquisitions, and, perhaps most importantly, contracted security guards.
That last expenditure is critical because without on-duty security guards, the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, libraries and research facilities, and the National Zoo, can’t open to the public. “We cannot keep every gallery or exhibition in every museum open daily without sufficient security,” Clough said in his testimony. “Therefore, when visitors come to an art museum, they may find a sign saying that the third-floor galleries are closed to the public that day, for example.”
Clough added that the Smithsonian might to postpone or even outright cancel exhibitions it has scheduled for 2014 and 2015, such as a planned exhibit at the National Museum of American History about the origins of democracy. Additionally, infrastructure jobs planned for the Smithsonian’s many sites might have to be deferred, including repair work at the National Air and Space Museum caused by the August 2011 earthquake.
Funding for the Smithsonian, which includes administration of the Kennedy Center and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, lost about $41 million of its $996 million appropriation for fiscal 2013 when sequestration went into effect. The forced budget cuts also mean that the Smithsonian will have to pare back the resources it commits to research, which spans topics from the histories of the world’s cultures to the origins of life on Earth to infectious diseases. Sequestration could also impact the Smithsonian’s ability to maintain its most valuable assets. And, as Clough warned, much in the Smithsonian’s collections cannot be replaced:
We are the guardians of Morse’s telegraph; Edison’s light bulb; the Salk vaccine; the 1865 telescope designed by Maria Mitchell, America’s first woman astronomer who discovered a comet; the Wright Flyer; Amelia Earhart’s plane; Louis Armstrong’s trumpet; the jacket of labor leader Cesar Chavez; the Lansdowne portrait of George Washington; the Congressional Gold Medal awarded to Japanese American World War II veterans; the Spirit of Tuskegee airplane, used to train Tuskegee Airmen during World War II; the Hopi ceramic pot carried into space by Chickasaw astronaut John Herrington, the first Native American to orbit the Earth; the camera John Glenn purchased at a drug store and used on his historic voyage into space; Asian, African and American art; the Apollo 11 Command Module, Columbia; and the space shuttle Discovery. All of these icons require strict environmental controls that have to be maintained 24/7 and that are supported by top professionals.
Clough also said sequestration will affect the timeline for the Smithsonian’s next museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Construction of the new facility is being split between private and public funds, but Clough said sequestration will cut into the public share of the construction money and hamper the museum’s ability to hire staff.
