Director Anthony Beasley, who was appointed in February, had to find $3 million in 2013 budget cuts — about 6% of the organization’s budget, excluding its commitments to the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array in Chile.
The cuts include layoffs of 26 staff members.
According to Beasley, it will mean that there will be less support for users of facilities such as the Very Long Baseline Array and Green Bank Telescope (pictured). “Morale is obviously being impacted by this,” he says.
Beasley says the cuts reflect the overall efforts of the National Science Foundation to trim budgets in order to make way for new projects, such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.
NRAO is not the only astronomy community forced to tighten its belt. The National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, announced in April that it was laying off 35 scientists and support workers.
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