On April 29, West Boylston’s Town Administrator presented the Select Board with an FY2010 budget that funds the Beaman Library at a 15% reduction from the current allocation for library service. Following approval at Town Meeting, the town will need to submit a certification waiver request to the Mass Board of Library Commissioners. This will be the 5th year out of the past six that West Boylston will request a waiver because it could not meet the municipal funding requirement. We hope the proposed FY2010 funding level will be enough to preserve our library’s certification to receive state aid and remain part of the reciprocal lending system.
Calls and letters from library supporters were instrumental in reinforcing the value of the Beaman Library to our town officials. Resident and out-of-town patron support as well as the efforts of the Select Board, our Town Administrator and other town department heads working together all accrued to a FY2010 budget that is more equitable for all departments.
Let’s nurture this focus on value and cooperation.
Let’s nurture this focus on value and cooperation.
Let’s nurture this focus on value and cooperation.
The past few months have been so difficult! Through it all, our Library Director has shown outstanding leadership, strength and grace to the countless patrons who have contacted her, to the press, to the Trustees and Friends Boards, to our town officials and to her staff. The staff has also been amazing through this crisis. Despite the stress of answering questions about the library’s fate from concerned patrons throughout each day and pondering their own livelihoods, the staff continued to make the Beaman Library so much more than its building and books.
Our Town Administrator has publicly stated that “In my career in West Boylston, I have never had an issue that generated more correspondence to me or the Board of Selectmen than the lack of funding for the library“.1 It’s significant that it is our public library that has galvanized the community and motivated our town leaders to step up to our challenges. I believe there is a continued role for Beaman Library as a community beacon and I plan to keep advocating for it.
1Worcester Telegram & Gazette/Banner, 4/30/2009
