SHERBROOKE – One month after the province cut more than 20 per cent of its funding to Sherbrooke Village, the consequences are no longer hypothetical, and neither is York Lethbridge’s worst-case scenario.
“Layoffs are an inevitability,” the executive director of the Sherbrooke Restoration Commission, which operates the historic living museum, told The Journal in an interview last week.
How many positions will be lost remains unclear, but the scale of the provincial cut leaves little doubt about where the impact will fall. With most of its funding tied to staffing, the organization has limited options beyond reducing personnel.
“The substantial volume of this cut will affect literally every area of our operation,” Lethbridge said, including heritage interpreters, visitor services, food and retail operations, maintenance, trades and administration – the people who collectively bring the 19th-century village to life.
Last month’s provincial budget slashed the living museum’s $2.3 million annual operating grant by $472,000 and is expected to eliminate its $57,500 maintenance grant. “All told, it’s about a $529,000 cut,” Lethbridge said, “or 22.4 per cent of our annual budget.”
The confirmation of impending layoffs follows weeks of uncertainty, during which Lethbridge warned that job losses could not be ruled out. Now, with the provincial budget’s formal passage last week, the Sherbrooke Restoration Commission must reforecast its own budget to meet the village organization’s legal requirement to balance its books.
Meanwhile, the museum, which typically plans for a workforce of about 70 employees each year, must now reconcile its mandate to deliver a full heritage experience with a significantly reduced funding base.
“We have a number of options at our disposal,” Lethbridge said. “We haven’t made any concrete decisions as yet, because the passing of the budget is still so fresh. We are trying to mitigate the impact to staff. However, we also need to meet the museum’s mandate, maintain an excellent delivery of service to visitors and to our community in light of these really substantial cuts.”
Lethbridge said workforce reductions are the only viable way to absorb the cuts because reducing salaries is not an option. “Our employees, you know, do need to be well compensated for the service that they provide,” he said.
Some signature programming, however, is already under review.
The recently expanded Christmas at Sherbrooke Village event, which cost roughly $100,000 to deliver last year, along with an additional $42,000 in in-kind staff time, is being reassessed. Plans for a community meeting to discuss support for the event have been postponed.
“We still really want to see [it] continue,” Lethbridge told The Journal. “We are, of course, evaluating how that’s possible.”
In a Feb. 28 letter to Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage Minister Dave Ritcey and Guysborough-Tracadie MLA Greg Morrow, Lethbridge warned the cuts would extend well beyond the museum.
“Sherbrooke Village has become a tourism anchor in Guysborough County, along the Eastern Shore and throughout northeastern Nova Scotia,” he wrote.
“Reducing museum funding will restrict our ability to maintain the quality heritage experiences that draw visitors to the Eastern Shore. This means reduced traffic to local restaurants, accommodations and other service providers.”
He also pointed to mounting infrastructure pressures.
“Sherbrooke Village has an estimated $7.6 million in deferred maintenance on provincially owned heritage structures,” he wrote. “Cuts will severely impact our ability to keep pace with needed repairs on vulnerable heritage assets entrusted to the province.”
Those concerns have since been echoed by labour representatives.
In a related development last week, the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union issued a media release calling on Morrow to take responsibility for the cuts.
“Funding cuts to Sherbrooke Village … threaten the livelihood of workers, their families and the economies of surrounding communities,” said NSGEU First Vice-President Hugh Gillis. “There is no way these cuts can be absorbed without job losses.”
Gillis said the province’s decision to reduce the museum would have a disproportionate impact on the area. “In a small rural community, the disappearance of a single job is the equivalent of a hundred in Halifax,” he said.
Lethbridge said the commission has been in regular contact with the union as both sides assess the impact of the cuts.
“We’ve been very open and collaborative with the union that represents Sherbrooke Village employees as to the potential impacts of this series of cuts,” he said.
In early March, following substantial public backlash, the province restored about $56 million of roughly $130 million in cuts to social programming, including some supports in healthcare and community services, but the remaining cuts to arts and culture – including the funding reduction to Sherbrooke Village and plans to close 12 of the province’s 28 museums – remained in place.
“We haven’t had any official follow up to our letter from our MLA or from the minister of CCTH as yet, so we are still waiting to receive more communications as to the impacts to our budget,” Lethbridge said.
