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The current home of the Vancouver Art Gallery at Hornby and West Georgia Streets.Simon Hayter For The Globe and Mail

As it fights to convince the public that Vancouver should support a new $350-million art museum, the Vancouver Art Gallery is facing a revolt from its own unionized employees who question the gallery's ambitious plans while it is issuing layoff notices and reducing hours for more than a fifth of its staff.

In a series of e-mails sent to The Globe and Mail, staff members expressed their concerns. "If there is currently no money for the administration and care of the city's art collection and public art gallery, will the city end up with an expensive building that they are then unable to staff?" one asked.

The unrest has prompted the president of the union that represents the gallery's 75 union staff to try to require the VAG to disclose the amount of money being spent on public campaigns for a new building.

"It appears to us that at a time when people are being laid off and morale is tanking, the gallery is shovelling out buckets of money. The gallery is an awesome place and we want to make it work, but we need to have a gallery that is running efficiently and profitably," said CUPE 15 president Paul Faoro. As a gallery member, he will be sending a formal notice of motion for the VAG's September meeting to ask for the accounting.

Mr. Faoro is also going to ask gallery members to require that all salaries and service contracts over $75,000 be disclosed, the way they are for city halls and school boards.

But VAG spokeswoman Dana Sullivant says the money being spent to lobby for a new gallery is coming from special funds donated by the provincial government and private citizens specifically for the new building project.

Staff hours and positions are being cut because of shortages in usual sources of money, she says, specifically "a significant decrease in government funding that has impacted the organization's operating budget this fiscal year."

Since March, when a controversial plan to move the VAG to a waterfront space on False Creek was abandoned and director Kathleen Bartels reverted to a previous plan to build near the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, there's been a noisy public debate about whether the gallery should move at all.

Many have said it should stay in the former courthouse where it's been since 1983 because that embeds it in the heart of the city. Others have questioned whether, in the middle of a recession, the gallery can raise the $350-million for a new building. And still others have asked whether the gallery can cover the added cost of maintaining and programming a bigger building.

Ms. Bartels and her board members have always insisted they can.

To counter some of the opposition, the gallery has hired the public-relations firm PACE Group, which has helped organize information forums and co-ordinate an advertising campaign in local media. PACE is well-known for its work with the B.C. Liberal government and initiatives in Surrey spearheaded by Mayor Dianne Watts.

As well, contract workers have been hired to collect signatures from gallery visitors for a new building, and a project manager has been hired.

But now staff members are underscoring the fact that the gallery is struggling financially while all this is happening. According to e-mails and copies of layoff notices sent to The Globe by irate employees, staff already took a 5-per-cent pay cut last August to try to save jobs. At that time, 13 people had their hours reduced from full-time to part-time or from more part-time hours to fewer.

Throughout July, the VAG issued five layoff notices that will be effective in September. The letters to employees say: "The Vancouver Art Gallery continues to feel a serious impact in admissions, membership and donor support due to this current economic recession. In light of these challenges … we are forced to find further reductions with our staffing costs. It is with sincere regret that we must inform you that the Gallery will be eliminating your ... position."

Staff members also say that they are concerned that the gallery is claiming it needs a new building to accommodate programs, while some programs - such as the Open Space studio, the teen art program and gallery tours - are being reduced or eliminated.

Ms. Sullivant said no programs have been eliminated, although the teen art program has been delayed for a year "pending receipt of continued grant funding for this program."

The VAG's 2008-2009 annual report shows that its expenses of $14.9-million were $800,000 higher than its revenues. It covered the shortfall with a million dollars taken from its building fund.

Special to The Globe and Mail

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