BY KATHY CHANG
Staff Writer
METUCHEN — Mayor Peter Cammarano said the hardest part of putting together the municipal budget is balancing priorities as department heads make out their requests every budget cycle.
Unfortunately this year, the mayor said borough officials could not honor the Metuchen Public Library’s request for $8,000 to provide staffing on Sundays.
Sondra Flite, president of the Friends of the Metuchen Library, came before the mayor and the Borough Council at a meeting on May 1 asking the administration to consider the library’s request in the future.
Currently the library is open Monday through Saturday and closed on Sunday.
“We have 40 percent of our residents [with a library card], which is phenomenal,” she said.
Flite acknowledged that the borough dealt with unexpected large expenses last year.
Priorities that are budgeted in the 2017 proposed municipal budget include addressing public safety and financing the upgrade of the sewage pumping station.
“Most of the increases are going to address public safety on ways to keep our volunteer fire and first aid in place, which has been a significant issue for us,” said Cammarano.
Last year, the council approved a bond ordinance in which $1.15 million went toward much needed improvements for the pumping station, which was constructed in 1958.
The proposed 2017 municipal budget totals $19.6 million that maintains the current level of services, according to Business Administrator Jennifer Maier.
The proposed budget carries an increase of five tax points per $100 of assessed valuation that equates to a $96.25 increase for the average home assessed at $186,600.
Councilman Reed Leibfried said it’s important to note that the municipal portion of the budget is 20 percent of a resident’s property tax bill, which also includes school, library and county portions.
Flite said the funding mechanism for funds provided to the library is based on assessment of property values.
“It’s a silly way to fund anything because property values vacillate wildly due to circumstances beyond your control,” she said. “I do ask you to begin to think about how in the future, we can build a stable budget for the library, which would be enough to fund Sundays.”
Flite said former Library Director Susanna Chan and the interim director before her slashed operating costs to keep the library going.
“The Friends of the Library are proud to give $20,000 every year, but we can’t do salary … it would be inappropriate,” she said. “We are in essence a booster club and we can’t do major building repairs and salary line. That must come from the Council.”
Cammarano said the town government has been generous to the library through the years with capital money and providing outside consortium fees that go up every year.
“As far as funding, yes it is based on a crazy formula (one-third mill formula) that I still don’t understand, but the trend has turned,” he said. “If not mistaken, I think this year, the third of a mill funding formula provided almost $16,000 more in funding than previous year.”
Cammarano asked if the library board considered using those funds for Sunday hours.
Library Director John Arthur thanked the mayor for his remarks and listening to their request. He said the $16,000 is going toward the book and materials budget, which had declined by 60 percent.
“We are building that part of the budget up,” he said.
Arthur noted that Saturdays and Sundays are the library’s busiest hours from people taking out books and items to people attending events including the library’s popular Lunar New Year program in February.
Cammarano said it’s a difficult situation.
“The Friends [of the Library] do a tremendous job above and beyond what I think people realize,” he said. “It’s nothing against the library, it’s just a challenge for us to balance the budget and we deal with this every year.”
The mayor said next year, the situation could change.
According to the New Jersey Library Association, New Jersey State Law mandates that municipalities with local libraries allocate funding according to the one-third mill formula. With this formula, local libraries receive 33 cents for every $1,000 of assessed property value. In other words, property owners assessed at $100,000 would pay $33 per year, less than a dollar per week, for library service. While most municipalities fund the library above this minimum amount, the drop in property values since the recession has translated into lower overall levels of dedicated library funding, according to the association’s website.
