I know people are getting sick of my supporting the library, but I genuinely believe they provide a critical service and are a tremendous value to a community.
I received the following summary from the library regarding the latest budget proposal:
When you add it all together, here are the two key facts:
1. Direct funding for local libraries gets cut by one-third; and,
2. Overall library funding—all programs—will be cut by 38% under this deal.
I also know we need to be careful about spending. My problem with cutting spending on the library is that we have so much other wasteful spending that will continue uninterrupted.
I have the same problem when schools jump to cut core programs or ‘liked’ activities like band or sports when they want to raise taxes. Cut non-core areas and when those are trimmed out we can have a discussion on what is critical.
Let’s hope our legislators get this right, though I highly doubt that will be the case, as too many are too interested in keeping and gaining power to worry about actually doing the right thing. Time for a more democratic system in PA, even our own local legislators complain they can’t make a difference. If they can’t, who can? And shouldn’t that be the first thing to fix after the budget is resolved?
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