Orangetown Cuts Library Funding in '14 Despite Public Opposition

The Orangetown Council extended the public hearing on the 2014 budget from Nov. 12 to the Nov. 19 special session.

Most of the residents who took advantage of the final opportunity to speak out regarding the budget addressed plans to cut funding for for the libraries in Orangeburg, Blauvelt, Palisades and Tappan by 10 percent each from 2013. 

Blauvelt Free Library had already accepted the cut, but Palisades was hoping to remain flat while Orangeburg and Tappan asked for five percent bumps for 2014. The Orangetown Council looked into making those cuts in part to force the libraries to cut into their reserve funds.

In the end, the council voted to reduce all four library budgets by 10 percent as it adopted the 2014 budget. Councilmen Tom Morr, Denis Troy, Tom Diviny and Paul Valentine voted for the cuts and Supervisor Andy Stewart voted against them. For more on Tuesday's meeting, read this report on Patch. 

Helena Power, a member of the board of trustees at Palisades Free Library, asked all of the people who came to speak about the budget to stand, showing the support for library funding, as she criticized the move. For years, Orangetown had to fund each of the four libraries equally. The town was able to get the law changed at the state level last year.

"This doesn't jive with the plan to separate the libraries budgets," Power said. "The libraries are using all their resources to keep the doors open an keep services as they are. A cut in 2014 will mean all of us will cut services. I can assure you whoever is on the board (in the future) will see three times, four times and five times the number of people. Before you think of taking this from all of us, look at each library and consider its needs.

"It's time everybody took this a little more seriously. I understand everybody has to get to that line, but you have resources in town you cannot destroy by cutting across the board."

"I think further cuts are terribly short-sighted," said John Buckley, a trustee at Orangeburg Library. "I can't believe members of the board want to destroy the library system. Further cuts would have that effect. Very soon, we will have no reserves left. How do we come back to the taxpayers and ask for an increase to get to our normal operating budget?"

Cheryl McNeil of Orangeburg also spoke against the cuts, stating that even a zero percent increase would leave Orangeburg Library spending $60,000 in reserves. Orangeburg Library Director Bil Langham said that misleading information about library reserves had made it to the public, though McNeil acknowledged that the library currently has reserves that equal 70 percent of its annual budget.

Troy pointed out that until recently, the libraries had received a 10 percent race in 19 of 20 years, which is one reason their fund balances got so high. He and other members of the council set pushing the libraries to spend their reserves down to save the town money as a priority. Councilman Morr said he thought the way the move was being characterized was incorrect.

"There is a lot of misinformation about fund balance," Morr said. "It's not borrowing from the fund balance. Fund balance is money borrowed from the taxpayers, taxes you took from residents and have not spent. Prudently, you have to keep some. You can't live on the edge. You need five to 10 percent (of the annual budget) in fund balance. To make statements that you are borrowing from it or we are decimating it, what you are really saying is 'I don't want to give people their money back when we collected more than we needed."

"Some of these words are insulting,"  Diviny said. "We're not here to destroy the library system. We're here to hold you accountable. These are taxpayer dollars (and) 70 percent is not an appropriate fund balance."