Cuts spur Jones closure on Fridays after TM turns back budget request
By Scott Merzbach
Staff Writer
Published on July 03, 2009
Jones Library trustees are implementing a series of cuts, which include closing on Friday afternoons, after Town Meeting rejected the fiscal year 2010 budget they had requested for the system.
At the eighth and final session of Town Meeting June 24, members voted 76 to 75 against appropriating $2.13 million for the main library and the two branch libraries, a budget that needed a tax appropriation $34,704 higher than that recommended by the Finance Committee.
The Finance Committee supported $1.47 million in tax revenue toward the budget, falling $34,704 short of meeting the state Minimum Appropriation Requirement, a formula that requires municipal libraries to receive a set amount of money from their communities to remain certified.
Trustees will have to seek a waiver from the state library commissioners, unless a July 27 special Town Meeting reverses course and provides full funding through a petition article being sponsored by the trustees.
Trustee President Pat Holland said lack of certification could mean losing state aid, being ineligible for federal grants and not being able to participate in interlibrary loan. "Even more important, though, the lower budget would damage our services," Holland said.
Select Board and Finance Committee members both said a waiver would likely be granted because tax support is being reduced in similar proportion in the elementary school and town government budgets.
"I'd be willing to bet, dollars to doughnuts, the Jones Library gets the waiver," said Select Board member Diana Stein.
Select Board Chairwoman Stephanie O'Keeffe added her board was concerned about a lack of planning and restructuring by trustees that would justify the one-time use of reserves to supplement its budget. Reserves is where the additional money for the library budget would have come from.
Trustees argued they are looking to the future by trying to strengthen the institution's position by finding a better return on the Jones Inc. endowment and possibly starting a cafe that would be housed in the library and raise revenue.
Library Director Bonnie Isman spoke to the service the library offers during difficult times. "Libraries are definitely busier during recession periods," Isman said.
Rob Kusner of Precinct 3 offered an amendment to increase the library budget by $149,000, in recognition of all the services the library provides, but this was defeated by voice vote.
Kusner's motion came in response from one offered by James Smith of Precinct 6, who asked the libraries to cut an additional $149,000, which he hopes would mean eliminating the branch libraries and putting them in mothballs. "I am offering a creative form of triage," Smith said.
But Douglas Slaughter of the Finance Committee said this drastic a cut would likely jeopardize the opportunity to obtain a state waiver.
Vince O'Connor of Precinct 1 said cuts in service at Jones Library would disproportionately affect the town's poorest residents, who may not be able to afford to buy books and music, go to movies or have Internet access.
"We need to focus on the fact that the pain is not going to be shared equally," O'Connor said.
In other business
Town Meeting last week dismissed a petition article by O'Connor to have the town take from Amherst College, by eminent domain, the former Fiber Arts Center building at 79 South Pleasant St.
O'Connor argued that the college's purchase of the building was not a friendly act, because it will harm the downtown business community by taking away office space and the building will be removed from the tax rolls. It fits a pattern of college actions damaging the downtown, he said, including shuttering the Lord Jeffery Inn and not lending support to the Jeffery Amherst Bookshop before it closed.
"This is not a friendly act on the part of Amherst College. This is not an act we should tolerate," O'Connor said.
Connie Kruger of Precinct 6 said it is an intrusion on downtown by college and suggested the town should find a way to identify buildings that are off limits for purchase by Amherst College or the University of Massachusetts. But Kruger said O'Connor's article was overkill.
Town Manager Larry Shaffer said the college has been a good friend in providing in excess of $200,000 to the town during the last two years, and he believes President Tony Marx remains committed to renovating and reopening the inn as soon as the college's trustees back the project.
Another O'Connor petition that sought to advise the Legislature of the town's support for a gas tax increase fell by a 66-to-53 vote. O'Connor's idea would have been to use the new revenue generated to help fund regional transportation agencies, such as PVTA, and also apply money to chapter 90 aid to towns that can be used for local road projects.
Town Meeting members also agreed to transfer $900,000 from cash reserves to balance the budget, reduced from an original plan to use $1.2 million because of additional anticipated state aid, and moved $100,000 to the Finance Committee reserve fund.
Town officials told Town Meeting it is important to maintain as much in reserve accounts as possible to weather what is anticipated to be another difficult budget year.
