Eleven employees lost their jobs this week at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center, including its library director, archives director and a part-time sales director.

The Strip District museum eliminated six full-time and five part-time employees to cover a projected $500,000 shortfall in its 2004-05 budget.

Employees in the library, archives, publications and sales offices were told of the job losses on Monday.

Andrew E. Masich, president and chief executive officer of the museum, blamed the shortfall on a $2 million drop in the center's $15 million endowment, coupled with a $355,000 decline in the state Legislature's grant allocation.

The cutbacks will not affect construction of the museum's five-story wing, scheduled to open Nov. 12, or a special exhibit devoted to the French and Indian War, which will open next year.

Two floors in the new wing will house the Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum.

The staffing reductions, Masich said, "were made primarily in middle management in our library and sales and publications."

Before the layoffs, the center had 65 full-time and 30 part-time employees.

As a result, Masich said, the center may need to reduce the library's hours of operation.

The library is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays.

Reducing library hours, Masich said, makes sense because the number of authors, researchers, genealogists and students using the library is not growing.

The number of people using the library's collections and images online has increased, he said.

The museum's projected 2004-05 budget, for July 1 through June 30, 2005, is $4.4 million, up from this year's $3.9 million.

"Each year, we do receive funding from the state. We also receive some [Allegheny County Regional Asset District] money and that's actually been very stable for us. We get federal funding for special projects," Masich said.

The state money is funneled to the history center by the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission but is allocated by the Legislature and does not come from the commission's grant program, Masich said.

Unlike the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, which receives regular state funding each year, the history center seeks grants and cannot depend on a consistent stream of funding.

The state Legislature gave $9 million for construction of the Heinz history center's new wing -- a $27 million project.

"Six million of that $27 million is for the endowment. We need to build our endowment up. Our capital campaign called for us to get our endowment up to $20 million. We need that regular funding from our endowment to generate a reliable revenue stream," Masich said.

So far, the capital campaign has raised $23.8 million.