With the town budget approved at referendum on May 15, the $300,000 cut to the E.C. Scranton Memorial Library operating budget stands. With the reduced budget set to kick in on July 1, library officials are getting ready for changes and already looking ahead to next year’s budget.

The Board of Selectmen (BOS) originally proposed the $300,000 cut to the library’s operating budget as a response to the library’s move to a temporary facility later this year as a $15 million library renovation begins this year. Over the past 20 years, the town has covered anywhere from 84 to 88 percent of the library operating budget; this year the library asked for $1,248,481 from the town. In justifying the cut, the board noted that part of the reason the library lobbied for expanding the library from 17,000 to 37,000 square feet was the inability to provide desired programming in the 17,000-square-foot space; the temporary space the library will occupy during renovation is 6,300 square feet.

Despite opposition to the cut from library staff and supporters at budget hearings, the cut was approved in the total town budget and now Library Director Beth Crowley said staff members who would be reduced in light of the cut have been informed as of June 1.

“Staff was informed last Friday, so they will have a month’s notice,” she said. “Once staff has been informed, then we will be letting the public know any hours or service implications for those cuts. By July 1, everyone will know what’s going on.”

Crowley said a total of eight positions would be eliminated by reducing staff or not filling vacant positions and service hours would likely be reduced by about 20 hours per week. Before the budget referendum, she said the reductions would come through freezing three currently vacant positions and laying off five current employees.

“All of that will start July 1 because it starts with the beginning of the fiscal year, even though we are not moving until probably the end of the summer or fall,” she said. “I haven’t absolutely finalized the hour changes, but when they are they will be posted and we should be making that final decision in the next weeks or so.”

Looking Ahead

The run up to the budget referendum was often heated and emotional, but now with the budget numbers set, both library and town officials have discussed potential cost saving options for the library and are keeping communication lines open.

The day after the referendum, May 16, Scranton Memorial Library Board of Trustees President Beth Coyne, First Selectman Tom Banisch, Board of Finance (BOF) Chair Jean Fitzgerald, and members of the town Finance Department sat down for a meeting that all parties called positive and productive.

Coyne said the point of the meeting was to brainstorm ways to manage not only this year’s budget, but future budgets as well.

“Given some of the logical negative feeling when a budget is cut, I wanted to make sure that we met with Stacy and Jean and Tom just to say, you know, we look forward to continuing to have a great partnership with you as a town because it’s what the town needs,” she said. “I mean, listen, we are not happy about the budget cut and I don’t think any organization would be, but I certainly like them as people and feel like we can work together in the future and wanted to make sure that we all felt that way.”

Those in the meeting discussed ways to cut costs or seek addition revenue, including health care, grant opportunities, and other human resource services. While trying to cut library health care costs by joining the town pool was not possible because library employees are not town employees, Coyne said some other ideas had positive solutions.

“Another question I had was what kind of grant writing opportunities are there and I know the town has a grant writer on staff, and so we thought is there a way to collaborate with that person and use the database that they have access to,” she said. “The town said absolutely that is a great idea.”

Another key element of the discussion was making sure there would be no surprises when the library budget came up again next year.

“Given the fact that we are not a town department, I just want to make sure going forward that the library, we do have liaisons and that we do better utilize our liaisons all the way through and maybe have more frequent check-ins around what questions they have around our budget or how we can better prepare for those budget meetings,” she said.

At the BOF meeting on May 16, Fitzgerald confirmed that the meeting was a positive one and all parties are looking to keep working together.

“We talked about ways in which the town is going to work with the library to help them look at their budget to prepare for next year so there are no surprises on anybody’s part, so it’s not waiting for January for the meeting,” she said. “We talked about ways in which we can look at helping with other programs, maybe using town staff in the Finance Department, the Human Resource Department in order to really help the library get past the temporary space. It was a great meeting and everyone was very receptive to working together.”

The Construction Money

Another point touched on in the meeting was the town’s timeline to start authorizing money for pre-construction costs for the library building project and starting the bonding process. When the project was approved at referendum, the project had a 60/40 split with the town covering $9 million of the project through bonding and the library covering the remaining $6 million.

On May 29, the BOS authorized a special appropriation in the amount of $600,000 for the town’s share of pre-construction costs to be paid out of fund balance. Finance Director Stacy Nobitz said that amount would allow the town to reimburse the library for pre-construction costs it has already incurred. The town will then put the $600,000 back in fund balance once the first bond anticipation note issuance comes through.

There was some confusion as to why the town had only recently started putting things in motion for the project bonding, but Nobitz said the schedule has to do with cash flow; the town didn’t want to go out to bond too early and then end up paying interest on the money for longer than necessary.