Our Roxbury Twp Free Public Library plays a vital role in
the community. It is the center where people can gather, where they can use a
computer or where they can borrow a book or DVD to learn new skills and be
entertained. Sandy and its aftermath
made this very clear when over 18,000 residents came to the Library to access
the internet, re-charge their batteries and pass the time until power was
restored to the town.
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| Computer Center during Sandy |
Sandy has past and most of us in Roxbury have gotten back to
our daily lives. The Library however is experiencing a storm of its own. The
state mandated MINIMUM portion of the Library’s budget has been released with a
$68,000 reduction from 2012 numbers. Most
people know that the vast majority of library funding is raised through local
taxes, but you may not know that the State mandated annual minimum appropriation
for the operation of our Free Public Library is equal to 1/3 of a mill on every
dollar of assessable property within the municipality. Due to the downturn in the economy, the
mandated funding that the Trustees rely on for daily operation of the library
has been decreasing each year for the past several years. The minimum funding for 2013 is $1,096,213.
In total, the 2013 proposed funding is $241,000 less than it was in 2008. The
dramatic decreases in funding have necessitated difficult budget cuts; reducing
hours, limiting book purchases and forcing technology to surpass its “End of
Life” usefulness. Many needed projects and improvements have been set aside or
scrapped altogether.
The time has come for the residents to ask the Town Council
to once again step up and support the Library beyond the state minimum. In
years past the Council routinely added to the Library budget to create a
Library that was looked up to in the county. The past few years the Council has chosen not
to continue that assistance. The result of the decreased funding; reduced
hours, staff reduced by 1/3, program funding eliminated, and materials purchase
(books, CDs and e-books) at a paltry 3% of the budget. We will need additional
municipal funding to begin to restore our Library to the premier facility it
once was. Please help the library by contacting your councilman and ask him or
her to consider adding to the 1/3 mill for the library. Contact info for the
council can be found at http://roxburynj.us/index.aspx?nid=3
.
Friends of the Roxbury Twp Public Library
The Friends are dedicated to preserving the library and its
programs, an effort that has become increasingly important with the continued
budget cuts to library funding. For more information on the Friends of Roxbury
Twp Public Library visit http://www.roxburylibrary.org/friends/membership.html.
