McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center’s Privatization Is Under Way
At midnight on New Years Eve, the 34-person staff of the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center will lose their jobs. Some, but not all of the employees can then be hired back by a newly formed private non-profit organization, which begins operating the recently expanded planetarium on January 1st.
Jeanne Gerulskis is the present (and future) executive director of the Discovery Center. She says two new hires will make it easier for the organization to raise capital and hopefully hire more employees in the future — a chief financial officer, and a development director.
In the meantime, the Discovery Center will have to eliminate the equivalent of almost four full-time jobs. That’s three full-time positions, and about 36 hours of part-time work.
The privatization of the Discovery Center is part of the as legislature’s major cuts to the state budget. To learn more about the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center’s road to privatization, read this.