Smithsonian Woes

Those of you who follow the national news may be aware that the Smithsonian, my place of employment, has come under fire.

The issue that has been making news for the past week is an investigation into the compensation of the Smithsonian's secretary, Larry Small. An audit of Small, who makes over $900,000 per year (!!!) in addition to other compensations including a housing allowance, was found to have improperly charged the Smithsonian for personal spending. Senator Grassley of Iowa, the ranking member of the Finance Committee, has taken on the mission of looking into Small's compensation. In the past, Grassley has looked into the same issue for other major organizations, perhaps most notably the Red Cross, with his investigations often leading to the removal of the organization's leader and a mix up of the board. I'm certainly no expert on executive compensation, but $900,000 certainly seems excessive to me. But more than that, I'm appalled by his spending. He charged $160,000 to the Smithsonian (nearly 4 times my salary(!) and more than the cost of a nice house in many areas of the country). He's also charged $500+ hotel rooms, private jets, etc to the Smithsonian. And what is most troubling to me is that this comes at a time of extreme budget shortfalls in regards to the running of the museum. The Arts & Industries building is, for all purposes, permanently closed because there is no money to renovate the crumbling buildings. Multiple buildings have leaking roofs putting artifacts at risk. And all the museum's are extremely shortstaffed with hiring freezes preventing most departments from filling vacant positions or getting administrative support. Where are the priorities? However, at the moment, I can't say I support Congress's current response. Today they decided to freeze the $17 millionbudget increase they had given the Smithsonian for 2008. I understand their need to make a statement that the seeming abuse of funding must stop. However, I must believe that they realize that this freeze is not in any way going to affect those at the top. The cut is only going to hurt regular Smithsonian staff who will have to forego promotions on their comparatively small salaries and who will have to work extra hard because of a loss of staff that is not being replaced. Additionally, the cut will hurt visitors to the Smithsonian--the taxpayers who fund it--because programs will have to be cut. I'm not sure what the correct measure is. Anyhow, it will be interesting, at least to me, to see how this plays out. A hearing is scheduled for April 11 in Congress. The Washington Post has been covering this pretty closely if you want to look into it more.

Additionally, adding to the troubling news out of this institution, is the External Review of Art Museums that was made public yesterday. This review, conducted by a panel of outside "experts," comes down pretty hard on the Smithsonian American Art Museum. You can read it here. What's interesting about the report is that it was done while the Museum was closed, undergoing a 6 year renovation. The figures the experts based their reports on were from 2005, a full year before the museum reopened. Additionally, the "tour" of the Museum they were said to have taken, occurred while the museum was a hard-hat construction zone. I don't even think there was a single piece of art on display. There were few, if any, public programs going on. The Museum was practically dormant. Interesting, then, that they were able to make such sweeping judgments. Also interesting is that the information which they were given as a basis for their judgments is all in an appendix that, according to the Undersecretary of Art, is just too big to put on the Web, pretty much making it inaccessible to all but the most intrepid. Very upfront, isn't it? And also interesting is that the report, which has an entire section on how the Undersecretary should become the lead player on just about everything Arts related, was commissioned by him and that he sat in on all the meetings. And in yesterday's meeting, he had the nerve to tell us that he never asked for his $500,000 a year job and that he doesn't really want it. Boohoohoo. And yeah, right. And finally, my favorite thing about this report is that at not one single point were board members, staff members, the general public, or anyone else interviewed or asked to provide information. Sure it's an "external" report, but it sure seems to suppose a whole lot of information that is awfully hard to know about from the outside. (Especially when there wasn't even an "outside" so much, considering the Museum was closed and not really on anyone's radar.)

For me, personally, I guess the most interesting part of it all and the part with most potential impact is that the report recommends a merger of SAAM and the Portrait Gallery. The report states that this should be an "administrative" merger, but we've since been made aware that apparently "administrative" applies to every department except curatorial. The report was hastily approved by the Board of Regents, and supposedly the merge is to take place by the Fall. That may or may not happen depending on other events. Regardless, I'd have to say the news was a huge boost to staff morale. Hahaha.

Anyhow, I'm sure some of you are seeing flashing red lights about my posting this on my blog, but this is all public news. I'm not saying anything that hasn' t yet been said in national news sources or on major art blogs. And in a meeting today, we were told that we were free to write about and discuss this without retribution. Anyhow, the Museum itself has issued its own rebuttal of sorts on its own blog, which you can read here.