What a difference a week makes. With the anticipation of a reduced budget for 2012, Edison officials two weeks ago announced the planned layoffs of five full-time employees and a reduced operation at all three branches of the Edison Public Library. However, after extensive talks with the Township Council and the administration over the past week, the cutbacks were rescinded before they could take effect as scheduled on Jan. 3.
Judith Mansbach, director of the Edison Public Library, said the cuts were reversed based on a verbal agreement reached between the library board, council members and administrators. The agreement holds that $300,000 will be appropriated into the 2012 library budget.
Councilman Wayne Mascola, liaison to the library board, announced the agreement at the council’s Dec. 28 meeting. “We pretty much worked everything out for [the library] yesterday [Dec. 27],” he said.
The cuts would have resulted in the three locations — the Edison Main Library, the North Edison branch, and the Clara Barton Branch— being open just four days a week.
Resident Esther Nemitz, who attended the library board meetings that involved discussions of the cuts, thanked Mascola and the administration for their efforts to keep the three library locations open.
“We deserve to have three good functioning libraries,” she said. Nemitz said the administration, council and library officials should put some effort into making sure that drastic cuts like those proposed are never put into place.
“We need to make things better,” she said.
Mansbach had said the proposed cutbacks were due to a shrinking property tax ratable base in the township, which has been slammed by tax appeals. Edison saw a loss of $200 million in ratables in 2010 alone. Because of the decrease in ratables, the library appropriation dropped from its 2011 level of $5.3 million to below the $5 million mark.
The library was already forced to make more than $300,000 in cuts earlier in 2011. In March, it announced the elimination of seven positions and the institution of 10 furlough days, necessitating that the libraries close one day a month throughout the year.