The Royal Tyrrell Museum may have to tighten up its belt, like many other organizations under the Ministry of Culture and Community Spirit.
Last week, the Alberta Government presented its budget, and while many touted it as a spending budget, the ministry that oversees the Tyrrell Museum is facing cuts.
“Across the board we are looking at about a 15 per cent cut across our ministry,” said Tyrrell director Andrew Neuman. “How that translates into each program is kind of tricky because we haven’t had a chance to talk to our financial people and get some definite numbers, but we will certainly be seeing some cutbacks next year.”
He says there have been reports of reduced off-season hours at some of the sites under the Ministry, but that will not be the case at the Tyrrell.
“To the best of our knowledge we will not be reducing hours here because we actually make money in those hours. If we close, we lose money so there wouldn’t be any savings,” said Neuman.
He says so far the directive he has heard is that there will be no loss of jobs.
“We’re not expecting that here, for some of our service contracts it is hard to judge,” he said. “It is really going to boil down to how we manage our programs and keep things running to the best of our ability.”
The Tyrrell’s financial year winds up at the end of April. Until then, they will be continuing on projects that are in the works including landscaping at the entrance as well as gallery improvements and washroom improvements at the palaeo-conservatory they have already embarked upon.
“What we will be looking at probably is deferring some of the major projects we have been looking at, and some of the redevelopments, we will have to be put on hold for a while,” said Neuman.
An example of some of the projects they will have to review includes the barriers at the Hoodoos, as well as continued gallery upgrades.
“As far as actual impact on the public, we are going to try to minimize that,” he said. “It will be a few weeks before we hear more.”