The Jewish Agency for Israel will slash its budget by $45 million for 2009.
Some $12.5 million in cuts will come from organizational restructuring and cutting management costs. The agency also will make significant cuts in traditional grants given to other institutions in Israel as well as a $13 million reduction in actual programming. But it will not limit any of its core initiatives, the agency said.
The group already has slashed 20 percent of its workforce since 2003, but more staff layoffs are in the offing.
The agency’s budget deficit was the result of the drop in the dollar’s value vis-a-vis the shekel — a trend that has reversed itself in recent weeks — and inflation.
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