The cost of operating the town’s new library will add nearly $200,000 to the budget, according to the Finance Committee’s calculations.
Library trustees Roy Moffa and Ginger Kendall and Library Director Mary Wilson presented their revised fiscal year 2008 budget to the finance board Tuesday night. With a total operating budget of $585,397, reduced by $6,000 in library aid money, the library is asking for $579,397, an increase over last year’s budget of $162,939. But after taking into account adjustments for new employee benefits, estimated at $20,000, and increases in the cost of heat, estimated at $16,800, the Finance Committee arrived at a figure of $199,739 for additional operating costs, which will be presented to the voters at Annual Town Meeting and town election for an override.
The FY08 library budget includes an increase of 61.5 staffing hours. This number is slightly lower than that presented in the trustees’ original budget presentation, but, more importantly, it also reflects some juggling of staffing to decrease the number of new positions with benefits from four to two. When asked about proposed hours for the new library, Wilson answered that the trustees intend to maintain the current 53 hours per week and emphasized the charge from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners that libraries receiving funding for new facilities make a good faith effort to provide at least level service in those new facilities.
Finance board members described two possible scenarios for a separate library override. One option would be to have one override for the total incremental costs. A second option, which the board discussed at its Saturday meeting, would be to put the costs needed to physically open and maintain the building in the omnibus budget as part of a basic override for town and schools, and to have a second override for the costs of additional staffing. Kendall expressed some concern about the possibility of “pitting group against group,” and advocated for neither of these options, but for presenting the voters a single override for library, town, and schools.
The Good News
“This is not just a library, we’ve restored a building,” Moffa told Finance Committee members. Old Bromfield is now “fully restored, up to code, disability-compliant, and safe,” he said.
Moffa told the board that for a $2.6 million investment, the town has received a $7.45 million project that “has established the Old Bromfield site and building as a permanent fixture in the town of Harvard as a public library for 99 years.” [The rest of the money for the library construction came from the state and from privately raised and Library Trust funds.] In addition, Moffa highlighted the value of the Library Trustees’ ability to move quickly when the state funding was awarded, combined with some good luck in having two “amazing” winters during construction.
