On April 28, the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco announced layoffs of 53 employees, to take effect June 30. This is the most recent of several rounds of cuts to staff over the last six years. The laid-off employees include the whole team that creates planetarium shows, and most of the content developer team that creates the science and natural history exhibits. The museum’s board of trustees is also proposing to leave the Museums for All program, which provides free or reduced-price tickets for Medi-Cal or EBT cardholders.
Workers have voiced concerns that the gap left by professional creators, who have dedicated years of their lives to developing custom educational content, will be filled by recycled, contracted out, or rented material that may be outdated, lower quality, or even AI-generated.
These cuts are aimed at closing an $8 million budget deficit. Management continues to insist that employee layoffs are the only way, but has not even considered cutting the compensation of the 15-member leadership team, which has increased in recent years and included six-figure bonuses last year. The Academy also owns an $8 million mansion in SF that previous executive director Scott Sampson (who resigned April 29 but continues to advise the board of trustees) used as a part-time home. According to SEIU 1021, which represents 37 of the laid-off workers through Cal Academy Workers United, there were no meetings between unionized workers and management to discuss alternatives to layoffs before the announcement, even though negotiations over layoff impacts are contractually required. In fact, many workers found out about the layoffs not from their own supervisors, but from an SF Chronicle article published the day of the announcement.
Many laid-off workers have continued to work in the interim, saying that they rely on their co-workers work to keep Cal Academy running. Workers have been pushing for an audit of the museum’s budget management. San Francisco’s board of Supervisors has now moved to take action on that demand, pausing $9 million in city funding for aquarium maintenance in the meantime. Additionally, a petition is circulating to call for a vote of no confidence in the Academy’s board of trustees.
The Academy of Sciences is a beloved San Francisco institution, and it’s not the “leadership” team that earns the museum that love. It’s the people who create its exhibits, educate its visitors, serve food, and maintain its spaces. Visitors don’t want to spend $55 per person to see rented or AI-generated content, they want to see the quality of work that comes from really passionate, knowledgeable people doing what they do best. If there must be cuts, cut from the top! Leadership got Cal Academy into this budget deficit—let them take responsibility for getting out of it.
