Photo | Flickr/Henk Sijgers
March 17, 2020
Amid closure, Science Center faces tough financial decisions
Photo | Flickr/Stephen Dettling
The Connecticut Science Center in downtown Hartford.
By Sean Teehan
Normally, this time of year is a boom time for the Connecticut Science Center.
Throngs of children on school field trips playing with the hands-on exhibits are buoyed by spring vacation in April, when parents bring bored kids to the downtown Hartford museum, buying concessions and souvenirs while they're there.
But amid shut-downs to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the museum is now closed for at least two weeks, and so is the majority of Science Center's income, said Matt Fleury, president and CEO of the nonprofit.
"I would say it presents a very serious outlook for us in which we’ll have to make some very difficult choices,” Fleury said.
However, Fleury noted that the Science Center has reserve funds, and a line of credit available, and the museum is not in immediate danger of closing due to financial reasons.
"We have enough to get ourselves through a few months," Fleury said.
He said he will try to avoid significant layoffs over the next three months, but beyond that, “we will cross that bridge when we come to it,” Fleury said. The Science Center has about 80 full-time employees
The Center will reassess the closure on March 28. But all 150 of the Center's exhibits are hands-on, and current projections show COVID-19-related concerns spanning until July or August.
A long-term closure presents an immeasurable financial problem for the Center, which operates on an annual budget of about $9.4 million, Fleury said. About 60% of the Center's income comes from things like concessions, the gift shop and tickets. Without that money coming in, the Science Center is losing about $130,000 per week, meaning a half-million-dollar loss per month if the closure continues.
If layoffs do happen, and the Science Center loses talent, Fleury said he fears the museum may not recover to the level it was before COVID-19.
"We have to figure out how to protect that key asset," Fleury said, referring to the Science Center's employees. "You come out the other side as a depleted institution."
In the meantime, about a dozen Science Center employees are working to put at-home courses and science experiments online so that children stuck at home can keep occupied with enrichment activities, and teachers can get ideas for classroom activities that may have to be done remotely for the foreseeable future.
"We’re working to help teachers figure out how to do that,” Fleury said.
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