The Los Angeles Times announced Monday that it would offer voluntary buyouts in hopes of cutting its staff of 2,775 by as many as 150 employees , seven months after two of the paper’s top executives spoke out against such cuts, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Publisher David D. Hiller said in an e-mail to the newspaper’s workers that the reductions were necessary because revenue and cash flow continue to fall with the company about to be sold to Chicago real estate mogul Sam Zell. In the first quarter, the publisher said, revenue for The Times dropped 4% from a year earlier, with cash flow falling 13%.

“We also have to look at our staffing levels again, as painful as it is, and as many times as we have done it before,” Hiller said in the memo. “The fact is we have to take actions to keep staffing in line with the revenue picture, which currently is falling in the core print business.”

As many as 70 jobs could be cut from the newspaper’s news operations, which would bring the newsroom staff to about 850. The Times news operation employed about 1,200 when the paper was purchased by Chicago-based Tribune Co. in 2000.

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