PRINCETON: Anxiety grows over library funding bill

By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
   Legislation that would cut minimum funding requirements for municipal libraries in half as a way of providing local officials with more flexibility during budget season will be met with strong opposition from local library advocates.
   The bill, introduced earlier this month by Assemblyman Vincent Prieto, D-Bergen, would revise state law to cut the amount of tax dollars that must be dedicated to funding a municipal library. It follows intense lobbying on the part of many New Jersey mayors and officials from the state League of Municipalities, who have championed the measure as a way of untying the hands of local officials facing growing fiscal problems.
   Currently, municipal libraries are entitled to a third of a mill tax per dollar of assessed property value in a municipality. The present funding level means someone with a home assessed at $100,000 pays $33 in taxes for library funding. Mr. Prieto’s bill would cut that number in half, to one-sixth of a mill.
   Princeton-area opponents and others, however, maintain that such a move is shortsighted.
   Most libraries cannot even function on the current minimum level of funding, according to Princeton Library Director Leslie Burger, whose library board has already passed a resolution opposing the bill.
   Ms. Burger pointed to statistics, showing only 39 of the 228 state municipal libraries receive less than minimum funding.
   Of the remainder, 41 receive the minimum level of funding, while the majority — 148 — receive more than minimum funding.
   Also, librarians say the bill comes at an especially bad time, as the economic downturn has brought streams of patrons into local libraries, seeking knowledge and a variety of mostly free services.
   ”That’s not all talk,” said Ginny Baeckler, the director of the Plainsboro Public Library, of the surge in use her institution has seen since the economy soured more than a year ago.
   While some library officials said they recognize the supports of the bill have good intentions, they said it still represents a significant threat to the continued functioning of many local libraries. In light of that, many are already planning a concerted lobbying effort against the legislation, which was introduced in a state Assembly committee on Feb. 9.
   ”We will have to get exceedingly hysterical,” said Ms. Baeckler.
   Local librarians have allies in the fight against the bill, which some say is unnecessary given how well the current funding level has worked since being instituted over 100 years ago. State Librarian Norma Blake said the current level is self-regulating, in that the level of funding for a local library rises and falls with the amount of the local tax levy.
   She said a funding cut would undermine libraries that always see growing numbers of patrons during economic distress.
   ”This time is no different,” Ms. Blake said, of the current downturn.