Officials at the Watkins Community Museum of History say they are spending more money than they’ve got in hopes of making money.

The museum is running a deficit this year to hire new employees and promote others. It’s to improve museum operations in hopes of increasing membership, boosting contributions and landing grants.

“We’re taking a chance, but it’s vitally important,” said Rebecca Phipps, museum director. “For all the programs and various lectures and services and just basic museum work that we need to do, we need to have the staff to do it. And in order to have our community support us, we need to be able to present a good product. And in order to present a good product, we have to have staff.”

The museum is starting the new year with a new archivist and exhibits coordinator. There are plans to make a part-time curator full-time and to hire a development officer this spring.

And to beef up staffing, the museum is spending money it doesn’t have.

This year, the museum’s budget is $250,000, up $50,000 from a year ago. Virtually all the increase is being used to bolster the staff list, something Phipps has been working on since February, when she assumed the museum’s top job, vacated by the forced resignation of longtime administrator Steve Jansen.

Phipps said she figures she can afford the additions, in part, because of a one-time grant from the Douglas County Commission.

Commissioners dedicated $25,000 this year for the museum to hire a development officer, a post designed to tap into new and lost sources of money. Phipps said she intends to hire someone to work part-time, but with a diverse and full workload.

“It’s everything from bake sales to … grants,” said Phipps, who is accepting applications for the job that is expected to be filled sometime this spring. “That person will be very instrumental in searching out funds for us.”

Helen Krische-Dee sorts Haskell Indian Nations University yearbooks at the Watkins Community Museum of History, 1047 Mass. Krische-Dee moved into a full-time position Saturday as the museum's archivist/ exhibits coordinator. At right is a painting of Quantrill's raid on Lawrence in 1863.

Another addition to Phipps’ staff started this week.

Helen Krische-Dee, a former museum greeter who has worked part time on exhibits, now is the museum’s full-time archivist and exhibits coordinator. The job opened last year when Phipps fired Judy Sweets, another longtime museum employee.

Krische-Dee had been working as supervisor of periodicals and microforms at Kansas University’s Watson Library, where she managed a collection of more than 7,000 journals and even more microfilms, microfiches and other forms of document storage.

At the museum, 1047 Mass., Krische-Dee faces a new challenge: reorganizing boxes, file cabinets and shelves to make the museum’s archive contents more accessible to the public.

Old yearbooks, cabinets of obituaries, early Lawrence maps — even a manila folder chronicling the arrival of new KU basketball coach Bill Self — are available for public review, by appointment.

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“I hope we have a rush of people,” Krische-Dee said. “I’m ready for it. I think people will be surprised with what they’ll find here.”

Joining Krische-Dee later this month on the museum’s full-time staff will be Alison Miller, as curator. Miller’s been doing the job part-time since July.