Nine days after a round of layoffs that eliminated nearly half its staff, the Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego’s board of directors said it is reviewing concerns presented by current and former employees, including allegations of financial mismanagement.
The board met Tuesday, seven days after it received a “letter of no confidence” from current and former staff members, who asked for the resignation or dismissal of Andrew Utt, the museum’s executive director.
“ICA San Diego’s board is committed to the organization,” according to a statement sent to the Union-Tribune on Wednesday. “The board heard the messages from the community and is reviewing them carefully. We take the concerns raised seriously. We are not commenting while that review is underway.”
The “letter of no confidence” was initially delivered Aug. 19 to Utt, board president Karen Gilbert and board treasurer Lany Zikakis. In it, staff asked for a “formal audit” of the most recent fiscal year and a meeting to discuss “a path toward restoring stability.”
The letter — signed by “The Concerned Staff of The Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego” — was later forwarded to the entire board.
Separately, in an email sent late on Aug. 19 to the Union-Tribune, a group identifying itself as “Current and Former Staff of the Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego” detailed concerns about board leadership and Utt, who has been at the helm since 2019.
The group provided documentation of financial and operational missteps that, according to the group, have left the institution unable to cover payroll, retain staff or fulfill its public mission. It shared two documents: a timeline of recent staff cuts and an analysis of the museum’s Form 990 tax filings, including line-by-line annotations pointing to financial red flags dating to 2022.
ICA San Diego on Aug. 17 confirmed that it had laid off nearly half of its staff. The museum was formed in 2021 after the merger of Lux Art Institute in Encinitas and San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park. Its ICA San Diego North campus, above, sits on a parcel of land just off Interstate 5 on El Camino Real. (ICA San Diego)
The museum’s board of directors “are ultimately responsible for the fiscal health of the organization,” the group said, calling on board members to make an “urgent leadership transition” in its “letter of no confidence.”
The board met last Thursday with current employees to discuss and address their grievances at a regularly scheduled staff meeting, according to a current employee who attended the meeting. Five board members joined the virtual meeting, along with an HR representative and eight staff members, said the employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
At the meeting, board members told current staff they are looking into their concerns but, in the meantime, will be instituting guard rails and will work more closely with the executive director, who was excluded from the meeting, to ensure a smooth path forward, the employee said.
After board members left, staff remained on the call to express concerns with the HR representative, the employee said.
Some employees were affected financially as recently as two weeks ago when payroll was delayed due to “insufficient institutional funds,” amounting to a “severe violation of the state’s labor code,” current and former employees wrote in their letter to the board.
On Aug. 17, the day after the final round of layoffs, Utt pointed to the broader arts funding climate as the main driver for the staff reductions at ICA San Diego, which has campuses in Encinitas and Balboa Park.
The group said its timeline shows that staff cuts weren’t caused by arts funding challenges or the controversy over paid parking at Balboa Park, but rather by a slow decline that began four years ago.
“Recent media coverage about the situation at ICA San Diego has been focused on the current museum funding microclimate, but the financial situation is not new,” the group wrote.
The group provided what it labeled as an “independent analysis” of ICA’s federal tax returns (Form 990).
“In the return documents, it is clear to see that payables have far surpassed cash flow,” the group wrote. “The public deserves transparency as it relates to the impact of Utt’s management of ICA funds, as some of these funds are provided by the public through taxes and donations.”
A Union-Tribune review of tax filings for ICA San Diego shows the art museum’s mounting financial strain, with its unpaid bills nearly tripling in a single year, rising to $393,705 in 2024 from $138,200 the previous year.
The museum’s 2025 Form 990, which every nonprofit is required to file, is not yet available. Tax filings are typically delayed by months or even up to a year.
By the end of 2024, “ICA had less cash in the bank than it owed in bills,” the group said.
While the organization appears solvent on paper, the vast majority of its assets are tied up in real estate at its ICA North location — assets that cannot be liquidated to cover payroll or operational expenses. Of the remaining funds not bound to real estate, most were designated by donors for specific purposes, legally preventing the museum from reallocating them to pay salaries or overdue bills.
Staff reductions began in the latter half of 2025 and culminated this month with the elimination of the public-facing Visitor Experience team, which managed the front desk at ICA Central in Balboa Park.
By Aug. 17, all leadership positions across the museum had been eliminated, affecting all departments, including the operations, curatorial, facilities and education teams.
Utt said that of ICA’s 19 staff members, only 11 would be left.
Just weeks before the layoffs, ICA San Diego laid off its head curator, Jordan Karney Chaim.
The layoffs at ICA San Diego came 10 days after the San Diego Museum of Art, its neighbor across Plaza de Panama in Balboa Park, announced it had laid off 11 employees.
ICA San Diego’s financial troubles come in the wake of a rocky last few months for San Diego arts organizations.
Already reeling from dramatic reductions in state and federal funding, local arts groups faced cuts in their own backyard. This past spring, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria initially proposed $11.8 million in cuts, virtually eliminating all arts funding that directly aids local organizations. That funding was partially restored in early June, through a combination of city funding and a $3 million philanthropic donation by the Prebys Foundation.
Utt has said that ICA’s North campus remains open for classes, ceramics lab and the outdoor public art experience known as the Sculpture Trail. The San Diego campus in Balboa Park, however, is temporarily closed.
ICA San Diego is the byproduct of a merger in 2021 between Lux Art Institute in Encinitas, which opened its facility in 2007, and San Diego Art Institute, founded in 1941.
Utt said that the nonprofit museum remains “committed” to keeping both its campuses in Balboa Park and Encinitas.
“We don’t have every answer today,” the museum shared on social media on Aug. 19. “We do know that ICA Central is expected to return in the new year with a new approach to how the space and its programming are experienced.”