Additional cut of $100K nixed in favor of $20K
After several discussions across three days time, the San Benito
County Board of Supervisors approved the San Benito County Free
Library budget with a temporary due pass just after noon on July
21.
Additional cut of $100K nixed in favor of $20K
After several discussions across three days time, the San Benito County Board of Supervisors approved the San Benito County Free Library budget with a temporary due pass just after noon on July 21.
The delay came in part because Librarian Nora Conte had put together a budget that included $82,000 in cuts, largely from grant funding she was able to bring in to the county and cutting a half-time employee position. But on July 8 the Budget Ad Hoc Committee members Supervisors Jaime De La Cruz and Robert Rivas approached Conte and said the staff had recommended an additional $100,000 to be cut from the budget for a total of $182,000.
Though supervisors eventually approved the library budget with only a $20,000 cut that the library will need to provide from a trust fund that has been set aside for future expansion, the supervisors were focused on how to address the long-term issue of how to fund the library.
“What we need is a long-term plan,” Rivas said. “To expect the library to be held hostage year to year is unfair.”
Rivas said that he would only approve the library’s budget without the additional $100,000 cut if there was a motion to move forward on a long-term plan. In the end the supervisors agreed to create an Ad Hoc committee on which Supervisors Marige Barrios and Rivas will serve.
“To go after a special district will take a lot of work,” Rivas said. “But I think it could pass.”
Barrios eventually made a motion to approve the budget at $609,340, with the library to use $20,000 from its trust fund. The temporary due pass was approved by all five supervisors.
At the Thursday afternoon session, Rivas and De La Cruz noted that the actual recommendation from staff was to cut $450,000 from the library as it is a program that is discretionary, meaning the county is not mandated by state or federal law to provide the service.
“It was a recommendation of $450,000,” De La Cruz said. “I said, ‘No way. We can’t cut that much.'”
