BRATTLEBORO-I ask that the Selectboard not go forward with the proposed 8% cut to the Brooks Memorial Library budget.
The library is a unique institution in the town that serves all social classes, all income and education strata. It is effectively the living room of Brattleboro. And it serves many human and humane service needs of the community — heat, cooling, bathrooms, community, kindness, resources, information, culture, and education, all free to the patrons.
Cutting the budget means either fewer hours or fewer staff. Either choice makes incumbent staff work harder, as the demand won’t decrease along with fewer dollars. As it was, the budget also proposes cutting $20,000 for backup/substitute coverage, necessary as there are no provisions under current funding for covering vacation and sick time for the current workers.
I have been on the library board of trustees for the past eight years and have worked in human services in Brattleboro for more than 30 years. And I understand the need to rein in costs to minimize tax increases.
I would like the town to consider the idea that the library funding, alongside the BRAT Team, effectively covers a respectable public sector obligation to human services needs. What we fund through these services accomplishes far more than the symbolic amounts of money we give to the various nonprofit human services organizations.
An open and staffed library saves the town money through the reduced social costs that it helps prevent. Please don’t cut its budget.
Leo Schiff
Brattleboro
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