Library board adopts $8.53 million budget

Dan Glaun

The Great Neck Library board of trustees has adopted an $8.53 million budget for 2013-2014 that includes a 1.97 percent tax levy increase, falling within the state-mandated tax cap.

The budget, which does not include any costs for an anticipated renovation of the Main Branch that is currently in planning stages, was approved unanimously at Tuesday night’s board meeting.

“As stated at the first budget workshop on March 5, 2013, this budget was created with the mission of the Great Neck Library in mind, namely, to provide the highest quality library service to the residents of the Great Neck School District in a fiscally responsible manner,” according to a board statement distributed at the meeting. “It incorporates the reason recommendations and input of the board of trustees, the library director, the professional staff and comments made by the public at the budget workshops over the past several weeks.”

The budget features a $119,000 increase from 2012-2013. $8.4 million will be covered by tax appropriations, with the rest derived from operating revenues. The increase was driven by a $79,700 jump in employee benefits and taxes and a $53,000 increase in spending for materials and programs.

Much of the change in materials and programs expenses was due to projected $27,100 increase in Nassau Library System fees, according to the budget. The board is in dispute with Nassau Library System over the way the consortium assesses its fees for online databases and library services, alleging that Nassau Library System’s practice of basing fees on the size of a library’s budget is unfair. Trustees will meet later this month to discuss a response.

The board is also projecting a $43,000, or 24.6 percent, drop in operating revenue, which business manager Neil Zitofsky attributed to an overestimation of the income that would result from hiking late-return fines last year.

“In fact that did not materialize,” Zitofsky said.

The $79,700 jump in employee benefits resulted from rises in state retirement contributions and health-insurance premiums, according to the board’s statement.

But salaries took a 1 percent drop, with the library trimming two full-time equivalent positions from last year’s budget.

“The personnel summary reflects that we have dropped from 80.9 to 78.9 full-time-equivalent employees, accomplished by elimination of vacant positions and reduction of reliance on on-call staff substitutes,” according to the statement. 

Former trustee Ralene Adler, who was part of the Library Watchdog group that opposed 2011’s $20.8 million expansion plan, thanked the board for their work preparing the budget but questioned the amount of spending on some online databases that she said are rarely used.

“If the public doesn’t use it, why buy it?” Adler said.

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