NEW YORK The Jewish Federations of North America informed its board of trustees that it was letting go of three senior vice presidents a very clear reminder that new CEO Jerry Silverman came to his post with an impressive corporate resume whose experience in the philanthropic world took place outside of the federation system.
Silverman was brought in as an outsider who could make changes, and in forging his leadership team he is dismissing three longtime executives.
Let go last week were Rob Hyman, organizational development and stakeholder relations; Eric Levine, development and the Center for Jewish Philanthropy; and Barry Swartz, continental community development and capacity building.
Swartz and Hyman even go back to the UJCs predecessors, the Council of Jewish Federations and United Jewish Appeal.
The federation systems umbrella organization has laid off dozens of employees over the past couple of years in the name of cutting costs, and many of the moves generated a good deal of anger.
Four years after Vicky Agron, then-senior vice president for development, submitted her resignation, some are still complaining that she was wrongly pushed out.
So far, however, these layoffs do not appear to be sparking outrage from the staff, even though by all accounts Swartz, Hyman and Levine were dedicated employees of the federation system, and helped the organization transform and evolve over the years.
There could be a few reasons for the lack of outrage, most notably that the layoffs came right from the top, from Silvermans office.
According to insiders, when the organization had laid off huge swaths of employees, the leadership would decide on how much money had to be cut from the budget, but middle management made the personnel decisions.
Each department had to just trim this and trim that, and it was left to the more senior people in the department to figure out who was cut, said a former UJC insider intimately familiar with the situation involving past personnel moves.
During earlier rounds of cuts, as the organization was slashing 25% of its budget, top-tier employees seemed immune to the layoffs.
You had to cut 10-15%, said the insider, but it was their pound of flesh being cut. And there was a sense that it was never being addressed at the top. The executives were off limits.
Not this time: Swartz, Levine and Hyman were senior vice presidents.
Jewish Federations would not confirm it, but insiders said the three combined to earn somewhere between $750,000 to $1 million per year in salary and benefits. (JFNAs overall budget this past year was about $30.3 million.)
So these cuts should go a long way toward placating the critics of Jewish Federations who have said that its budget is bloated at the top.
OFFICIALS at Jewish Federations are stressing the notion that the cuts are strategic, designed to make the organization more nimble, not just leaner.
There is no question that this is about strategy, the organizations spokesman, Joe Berkofsky, said.
We are not just getting rid of a couple of bucks. We have a strategy for the organization and we need the right people to move it forward.
As for the details as to how the layoffs will work:
Swartzs job, which involved a number of hats, including running UJC Consulting and overseeing the Washington office, will be folded into the Washington office. He will not be replaced.
Hymans duties, which consisted primarily of managing board relations, also will most likely be folded into another job and filled at a different pay grade.
Levines job, as the head of the organizations financial resource development operations, is the only one that looks like it will stay intact, though Silverman clearly wants someone with a different take on things. The job most likely will be filled from within the federation system.
A Jewish Federation insider said more reductions could be coming as the organization starts to discuss its 2011 budget this spring, but most likely not the wholesale layoffs that have been seen in the past.
