PUBLIC SERVICES AT RISK; CITY LIBRARIES ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK

Repost from the City Newspaper, April 21, 2011

By Christine Carrie Fien

When the Central Library cuts its weekly hours from 63 to fewer than 51 this summer, it will represent more than an inconvenience. The reduction will mean that the library is no longer meeting the minimum weekly hours required by the state - 55 hours - to keep its designation as a central library.

The reduction in hours is necessary, library officials say, to help close a $500,000 structural gap at the Central Library, driven by rising pension costs and negotiated wage increases for union employees.

Officials intend to apply for a waiver from the operating-hours requirement, and Ove Overmyer, president of the City of Rochester Library Workers union, says he's confident they'll get it. State officials realize, he says, that you can't require libraries to meet certain operating hours while funding for libraries continues to dry up. State aid for the Central Library has declined from $372,438 in 2010, to $348,230 in 2011.

State aid for the Rochester Public Library branches declined from $88,616 in 2010, to $82,856 in 2011. As it prepares its budget, City Hall has also asked library officials to reduce operating costs for the city branches by $646,000, and there have been discussions about shuttering two branch libraries in the city.

The Central Library budget is primarily funded by Monroe County, to the tune of about $6.8 million a year for operating costs and $400,000 annually for computer and technology services. That funding has remained flat for several years.

The question is, if the downtown library were to lose its designation as a central library, would the county continue to provide funding? Overmyer says it might not.

"They wouldn't have an obligation to us," he says.

The loss of the "central" designation would also mean the loss of about $450,000 in annual state aid. Those two things combined, Overmyer says, would spell devastation for the downtown library.

But Overmyer says he's not worried. The Central Library will get the waiver, he says, and local library officials have gotten good at doing more with less.

"I don't think this is a big issue," he says. "I think people may be reactionary because of the politics behind the city and county relationship. But I don't think that fundamentally, services will change all that much, as long as everyone keeps a cool head and tries not to get territorial or political."

A majority of the Central Library's users - 56 percent - come from outside the city, library officials say.

Rochester Public Library Director Patricia Uttaro said through a spokesperson that she is not immediately concerned with the possibility of the Central Library losing its designation. The issues with the branch libraries - the funding cuts and possible closings - are the more immediate concern, she said.

EDITOR'S NOTE:  The Voice Reporter takes exception to the comment, "The reduction in hours is necessary, library officials say, to help close a $500,000 structural gap at the Central Library, driven by rising pension costs and negotiated wage increases for union employees."

Actually, most informed people would argue the city and library budget deficits have little to do with rising pension costs and salaries for unionized employees-- these projected figures that the City Budget and Finance Directors promote are fixed numbers to rationalize their own inability to project reasonable outcomes. If we really want to get a handle on "labor costs," maybe we should start at the higher end of the food chain.

The negotiated wage increases that our two unions, AFSCME and CSEA,  bargained for in the good faith are infinitesimal dollar amounts compared to the real issue that lies before us.  We are suffering from a dwindling tax base and lack of courage from our decision-makers in Albany to find real revenue streams by making multi-billion dollar corporations and multi-millionaire New Yorkers pay their fair share of taxes.  This is a revenue problem, not a spending problem.  And, once again, here we are balancing budgets on the backs of those who can least afford it and scapegoating public employees for creating the fiscal mess we are in. 

If we want to responsibly address "labor costs" for city public services, why not target where the real expenses are-- senior/confidential/management employees?  We are being told that everything is on the table-- so let's put it all out there for everyone to see. 

Through a FOIL request, the D&C illustrated that there are 114 employees that make over $100,000 a year.  Go here to check ROCDOCS.  And, to put these salaries into perspective, the entire budget operations for the Highland Branch Library for one fiscal year equals the pay of two of these top paid public workers.  Where are our priorities?

Furthermore, to say that employee collective bargaining agreements, the same documents that city officials signed and approved, are somehow one party's fault is ludicrous.  These collective bargaining agreements should be viewed as a time-honored tradition of labor and management collaboration and not used as a device to misinform and divide our community.