Another wrinkle to explore in the quest for sustainable wages in Museum Land:
Some museum employees pursuing better compensation run into challenges related to affiliation with governmental entities. Museums such as those at state universities are staffed by people who are actually public employees (just like the football coaches, but without the exorbitant salaries). Sometimes this is beneficial to employees (like when they receive legislatively mandated cost-of-living pay increases), but sometimes the structural framework of employee classification can put some hard limits on salaries, making it difficult to change compensation without also changing your job description. This means that even if the museum has success getting additional funding from the private sector (donors, sponsors, etc.), they may not be allowed to spend it on their staff in the same ways that a private business can.
A significant effect of these structural limitations is that many museums are increasingly reliant on private contractors (whose pay is not limited by job titles or classifications and is instead a reflection of what the market will bear) to do things that their own staff already do (or used to do before downsizing eliminated their positions). This can create a situation where the museum is paying what the work is actually worth, but is not paying their own staff to do it. This allows administrators to follow the rules and stay within the compensation ranges dictated by governmental job classifications, since they're technically spending the money on stuff (goods and services) instead of staff (their own personnel).
I haven't seen the math to allow me to say for certain whether or not this ultimately saves the museum (and thus the government which oversees it) money in the long run, but I have seen more than a few museum professionals who begin their careers as museum employees and then transition into independent contractors. Is this issue being discussed much in the museum community, especially among those in museum leadership?
Michael
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Michael Holland
Principal/Owner
Michael Holland Productions
Bozeman MT
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-14-2017 10:37 AM
From: Dawn Salerno
Subject: Strategies for Funding Increased Compensation
I am co-writing an article which presents the rationale for an increase in museum salaries (I know - huzzah!). What would make the article stronger is examples from museums who have raised salaries (beyond COL), and found money within the budget to pay for these raises (the biggest challenge, it seems). If your museum has done this, and you can share your strategies, I'd love to speak with you in the next few weeks. Let me know and I'll message you individually.
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Dawn Salerno
Deputy Director, Public Engagement & Operations
Mystic Museum of Art
Mystic CT
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