Aquarium staff facing pay cuts

Billed as Charleston's most visited attraction, the S.C. Aquarium saw a plunge in attendance and donations this year and will require its employees take unpaid furloughs to compensate.

All 82 full-time and part-time employees must take off 10 days between now and Feb. 20. The unpaid days will save the aquarium an estimated $110,000, which will take pressure off the attraction's operating budget during the slow winter season, officials said Thursday.

"We're in the same boat as the vast majority of the tourism industry," said aquarium spokeswoman Beth Nathan.

As a nonprofit corporation, 75 percent of the aquarium's operating revenue comes from ticket and event sales and memberships. The remaining 25 percent comes from fundraising and grants.

More than 403,500 people visited the aquarium between January and November of last year. Fewer than 379,000 people, or nearly 25,000 fewer people, have visited the aquarium from January to November this year.

September, which opened with a hurricane threat and a gasoline shortage in many places within Charleston's drive-in market, proved especially painful. A little more than 18,000 people visited that month, down nearly 10,000 tickets from September 2007.

The aquarium received more than $2.3 million in donations in 2007, but the 2008 tally to date doesn't quite reach $1.9 million.

Membership programs money and government grant revenue were cut nearly in half, while corporate sponsors provided little more than one-quarter of the funding they gave in 2007.

"Like many non-profit educational organizations around the country, we are faced with a very unfortunate circumstance and are unable to reduce our spending without impacting our staff," said Kevin Mills, aquarium president and chief executive officer, in a written statement. "We don't take this decision lightly, as we owe our employees our gratitude for making the aquarium the world-class organization it is."

The aquarium opened in 2000 with a nearly $12 million debt. It has a remaining $1.3 million to raise by January of 2010.

Before instituting furloughs, the aquarium curbed spending in August and enacted a nonessential spending freeze and a hiring freeze in October.

The aquarium plans to launch a Penguin Planet exhibit in March with the hope that the birds will earn their reputation as a national tourist draw.