If Gov. Dannel Malloy’s spending plan for the state goes forward as proposed, nonresidents will no longer be able to borrow materials from New Canaan Library or any library outside of the town or city in which they live, the facility’s director said.
Lisa Oldham said she’s contacted the town’s delegation to the Connecticut General Assembly to advocate on behalf of the Connecticut State Library, whose budget would see a $3.7 million (29.4 percent) reduction under the spending plan put forward last month by the governor.
“If you live in Stamford or Norwalk or any other surrounding towns, you won’t be able to use New Canaan Library with ease,” Oldham said.
The proposed biennial budget calls for a reduction from $16 million in the current fiscal year to $12.3 million in FY16, according to the governor’s proposal (see page 80 here). Major changes include the elimination of grants to local public libraries ($193,391 statewide or about $20,000 annually for New Canaan Library) and $315,875 for “Cooperating Library Supports.”
The proposed budget calls for no change in the number of full-time positions (55) within the Connecticut State Library (see page 53 here).
According to Oldham, a major consequence of Malloy’s spending plan is a severe reduction in the library’s buying power: With the elimination of the Connecticut Library Consortium, New Canaan (and others) would lose negotiated discounts on supplies.
“So, for example, when we get books in we have to reinforce the bindings, we put on special cases to keep them so that they’ll last for more than a few borrowers or people, all of those supplies we get with discounts negotiated through the consortium, which we don’t have access to as individuals,” she said. “So the library furniture, trolley that we move books around. Pretty much everything that we can buy that’s library-specific, we are able to negotiate discounted prices through our working the whole Connecticut state consortium. So there is an indirect cost to us as a library, and then ultimately to taxpayers.”
With the reduced state library budget, the agency will lose its funding for ConnectiCard, which allows users at 192 participating libraries in the state—including in New Canaan, Wilton, Westport, Greenwich and Stamford—to borrow materials from facilities outside the towns in which they reside. The program includes motor vehicle transportation of borrowed books, movies and other items back to their “home” library.
Oldham said New Canaan Library is planning this week to notify its users via email about the consequences of the proposed budget.
Malloy does not directly address the matter of library funding in his budget speech, introductory materials online or press section of his website. His office could not immediately be reached for comment.
The state library’s capital budget requests of $125,000 for each of the next two years for grants-in-aid to public libraries for technology were not supported in the governor’s budget (see pages 14 and 15 here). The governor in his spending plan does fully fund requests for $5 million and $7 million over the next two years for grants to public libraries for construction, renovations, expansions, energy conservation and handicapped accessibility.