Last week, Denver’s contemporary art museum announced it was cutting four staff positions. The story continues this week, with another staffer gone.

As a show at Pirate: Contemporary Art pays tribute to artist Dale Chisman, his estate continues to seek answers concerning payment and sales, as his gallery responds to a legal challenge.

The Denver Landmark Preservation Commission on Tuesday rejected an appeal to overturn the Lower Downtown Design Review Board’s decision in February to approve the 34-story Bell Tower’s mass and form.

As of March 20, four employees will no longer be working at MCA, dropping its staff by 20 percent. Layoffs aim to soothe the budget.

Today and Friday bring a wave of good exhibitions, from the intricate patterning of Rex Ray to the familiar symbolism of Dale Chisman.

For the umpteenth time, a set of design guidelines will go back to the Denver Landmark Preservation Commission on March 17 for consideration, guidelines and standards that apply to not only the rehabilitation or restoration of existing structures and elements there, but also to new construction.

Now it’s the Scientific and Cultural Facility District’s turn to talk about some bad, bad numbers.

There’s always a two-month lag time for the district to learn how much it has collected, in terms of the sales and use tax of one penny on a $10 purchase in the seven-county metro area.

For January, that amount is down about 18 from what was collected over the same one-month period in 2008. That is, in January 2009, the district took in about $2.7 million compared with just under $3.3 million in January 2008.

What does that mean? The district will now reconsider its budget projections, probably dropping them from the $42 million originally budgeted for 2009 to somewhere between $36 million and $40 million.

It’s all about the jobs, or a chunk of it is, anyway.

As agencies in Colorado learn how much of the federal stimulus money will be rolling into the state courtesy of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the Colorado Council on the Arts today passed a draft budget for fiscal 2010 that includes $300,000 in funds earmarked for job protection and preservation.