‘Disrespectful and Really Chaotic’: San Francisco Downsizes Public Arts Galleries Staff

The staffers who run San Francisco’s city-owned art galleries and grant programs for artists say they’ve been thrown into chaos as budget cuts hit the Arts Commission while it is already navigating major restructuring and a broader shift toward privatizing arts funding.

San Francisco faces a nearly $600 million budget deficit over the next two years, and Mayor Daniel Lurie is asking departments across the city to reduce personnel spending in part by laying off hundreds of workers. One of those layoffs has targeted the San Francisco Arts Commission, the city’s agency charged with championing the arts, and other workers have been asked to move departments. The way those changes have been communicated has resulted in even more frustration and confusion for staff at the small city agency.

Jen Atwood, a program manager with the commission, received notice May 1 that she had been laid off after more than two years of overseeing grant-making programs. But it turned out that Atwood’s role was not going away. Instead, it had been offered to a more senior employee whose position will be eliminated.

“It’s very confusing for me. I’ve never gone through anything like this before,” Atwood said. “I take a lot of pride in my work, and that pride is a little hurt right now because, I mean, I really busted my ass for the commission, especially that week I received notice.”

Maysoun Wazwaz is the manager of exhibition and public programs with the commission’s galleries program and has worked for the city for nearly a decade. She also received a layoff notice just weeks ago and was told her position would be eliminated. But her layoff was later “rescinded,” she said, and the department offered to reassign her to another program within the agency.

The cuts come even as the mayor has repeatedly said the arts are critical to the city’s recovery, and promoted free concerts around the city with the help of philanthropic dollars and private funding through groups like the Civic Joy Fund.

“San Francisco’s arts and culture ecosystem is the most vibrant in the country, and under my administration, we are working to do a better job supporting the artists and arts organizations who are driving our city’s economic recovery,” Lurie said in a statement on Wednesday, announcing two new arts grants. “In a moment when it’s more difficult than ever for our small arts organizations to thrive, we are stepping in to support our community groups and add two more grant opportunities.”

The team overseeing public galleries that Wazwaz was part of has been reduced by half. Even before these cuts, the San Francisco arts landscape had been struggling. Both nonprofit and commercial art spaces in the city have closed over the past year.

“We keep hearing how this mayor is an arts and culture mayor, and it just feels like someone who doesn’t know what we do enough well enough to be able to make like a measured decision about where a cut can happen without impacting sort of the core mission of the agency,” Wazwaz said.

Before the layoff notices, Wazwaz and other staff were screened and asked to report their qualifications for their position and other roles they could potentially be moved into if their current roles were cut.

“People are stressed out, and that obviously has an impact on the work that they’re doing,” Wazwaz said. “In inconveniencing people to ask for proof of experience, it just feels very disrespectful and really chaotic.”

That process, sometimes called “bumping,” is intended to give employees with more public service experience more job security during budget deficit years like this one, and it is playing out across city departments.

Atwood and Wazwaz support the seniority protections, but said the process has felt like a game of musical chairs, sending staff into a frenzy about which positions could be cut next.

“It just feels icky,” said Atwood, who has been offered a lower-paying position at City College that she’s still considering whether to take. “We’re being pitted against each other for the position in a way.”

The mayor has stressed that the city must make difficult decisions to get on a stronger financial footing. The city has already issued 127 layoffs, and a total of 500 are expected to be cut around $100 million in personnel spending. Other departments, like public health, have seen several positions completely cut.

But the budget cuts at the Arts Commission also come during a time of dramatic change at the agency overall. This year, the city moved to merge the Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, and the Film Commission into a single agency.

“I recognize how challenging this news is. Those impacted have made meaningful contributions to our work and mission in championing and supporting the arts,” Ralph Remington, Director of Cultural Affairs, wrote in an email to staff at the Arts Commission about the layoffs. “As the budget process continues over the coming months, it is possible that additional cuts and changes may be required before the final budget is adopted.”

Remington announced his retirement in February and has since been serving in an advisory role. The city recently tapped Matthew Goudeau to serve as the city’s first executive director of arts and culture, steering the new superagency formed by the three merged arts agencies.

Atwood said there’s been a leadership vacuum in the arts during the budget process at a time of shifting priorities and a changing strategic approach to public arts in San Francisco.

“Leadership being absent and still taking a salary, and then having these layoffs take place, it’s especially demoralizing and frustrating,” Atwood said. “My worry with the merger and these layoffs is that it’s going to dilute this core focus on funding projects and organizations that represent the city’s diversity.”

Jackie von Treskow, another arts agency staff member and shop steward for the local union, said the anxiety she’s heard from staff stemmed from the city’s handling of layoffs, not the bumping process itself.

“The union’s position is that the notices as issued bypassed the verification process required before anyone can be noticed, seniority wasn’t properly reviewed, and funding insufficiency wasn’t demonstrated as required under civil service rules,” she said. “The bumping that displaced one colleague from her position isn’t an abstract labor technicality. It’s the human cost of a process that wasn’t followed correctly.”

Officials for the Arts Commission said they could not comment on specific staffing changes or individual personnel cases.

“The Arts Commission remains committed to supporting artists, cultural organizations and creative workers across San Francisco,” said Edward Tom, spokesperson for the Arts Commission. “We also value the dedication and service of the employees who help carry out that mission every day.”

With budget negotiations still underway, von Treskow said she hopes the city will invest more public dollars in the arts through ways like tapping into reserves. Lurie’s budget proposal is due June 1.
“The layoffs and the merger make a lot more sense when you look at them alongside the administration’s broader approach to funding public services,” she said, “which is increasingly turning to private philanthropy to fill the void that public disinvestment creates.”