On Tuesday, March 7, 2017, registered voters in the Oneida Public Library’s Special Legislature Library District will get a chance to vote for candidates vying for the two open seats on the OPL Board of Trustees and to vote on the board’s proposed operating budget for the library’s upcoming fiscal year, July 1, 2017 –June 30, 2018.
Brad Adams and Katherine Wojciechowski are the two announced candidates running for the two open board seats. Adams, an Oneida resident, is currently a vice-president at NBT Bank, while Wojciechowski, a resident of Oneida Castle, teaches at Holy Cross Academy in the town of Vernon.
The OPL Board is proposing for FY 2017-18 an operating budget of $403,900 to run the library at 220 Broad St. It represents a 5.7 percent increase over the budgets of FY 2014-15, FY 2015-16 and FY 2016-17. The budgets for all three preceding fiscal years was the same at $382,110. (The OPL’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.)
Breaking down revenue sources, the proposed new budget has a Special Library District tax levy of $355,900, an increase of 6.5 percent over the levy of the preceding three annual operating budgets. Other anticipated funding is public funding of $15,000; private funding of $21,000; and library revenue of $12,000 generated by fines and ancillary fees.
“The special challenge for this year is that our operating budget has not increased for the past three years,” said OPL Board President George Richard Kinsella, Jr. “Just as many households experience difficulties when expenses grow and their incomes are not keeping pace, the trustees must carefully look at every expense and justify that we are operating in a cost-effective and efficient manner.
“The OPL relies on a number of part-time employees, most of whom are paid at the minimum wage rate,” he added. “We schedule a little over 6,100 staff-hours each year to cover the circulation desk, restock the shelves and assist patrons with their needs. New York State has increased the minimum wage during each of the previous three years while our income has been fixed. For the second half of our upcoming 2017-18 budget year, we will be paying a minimum wage of $10.40 per hour, up from $8.00 per hour in 2014.
“The OPL will not be able to continue to offer the same convenient hours of operation with high-speed internet access, wide choice of circulation materials and excellent programming and services without increasing the operating budget,” Kinsella said. “Our proposed budget increase of about $21,000 will allow us to pay the mandatory minimum wage increases, update the inventory, and replace failing and outdated equipment.”
According to Kinsella, the proposed budget increase would raise a property owner’s library tax by about 3 cents per thousand (at 100 percent equalization). For a property assessed at $100,000 at full value, the library tax would increase by $3.01.
Brad Adams, a former member of the OPL Board in the 1990s, is running for a five-year term on the board, starting July 1, 2017. As a bank vice-president and a holder of a masters in business administration from the University of Virginia, Adams believes he will bring a financial background to the board and also valuable experience as a co-chair of the New Library Project capital campaign. As a board member in the 1990s, he helped “transition the OPL to a Special District Library, which insured a stable source of operating funds.”
“The library opens up a world of possibilities,” Adams said. “I want to serve on the library board because children in our community deserve the opportunity to realize their potential. I want to see the OPL continue its programs coordinating with local schools to help improve their students’ academic achievements.”
Katherine Wojciechowski, a native of Utica and a graduate of S.U.N.Y. at Geneseo with a bachelor’s and a master’s in education, retired in 2010 from teaching in the Oneida City School District after 32 years, most of the time being spent at the Oneida Castle Elementary School. Since then she has been teaching at Holy Cross Academy. Living in Oneida Castle, she is active in village life and is a member of the Oneida Castle Veterans’ Memorial Committee.
“I look forward to working with the wonderful OPL staff and its dedicated group of volunteers in fulfilling the library’s mission to provide for the unique needs of our locality,” Wojciechowski said. “I strongly feel that a vibrant, modern library is vital to the health and future of any community.”
The OPL Board invites interested members of the public to attend its open hearing on the budget and to meet the board candidates in the library’s Meeting Room on Tuesday, February 28, at 7:00 p.m.
This year’s library vote is officially scheduled for Tuesday, March 7, from 12:00 noon to 9:00 p.m. in the library’s Meeting Room. To vote, library district residents living in Madison County must be currently registered with the Madison County Board of Elections while library district residents living in Oneida County must be registered with the Oneida County Board of Elections.
Absentee ballot applications are available from the OPL for registered voters residing in the OPL Special Library District who will be away from the district on the day of the library vote or are temporarily or permanently ill or disabled. Application forms and instructions for casting an absentee ballot are available at the OPL Circulation Desk, 220 Broad St. in Oneida, or online at the OPL web site (www.midyorklib.org/oneida) for printing out. Applicants who are duly registered to vote in the library district will be mailed absentee ballots at the designated address on the application.
The Oneida Public Library’s Special Legislature Library District, which is co-extensive with the Oneida City School District, comprises: the City of Oneida, the Village of Wampsville and portions of the towns of Lenox and Lincoln in Madison County; and, in Oneida County, the villages of Oneida Castle and Durhamville and portions of Sylvan Beach and of the towns of Vernon, Verona and Vienna.
I would like to see the salary, wages breakdown for each employee. Although you employ 6 part timers, how many in total do you employ? Your board is correct in that increasing expenses, where salaries in this area are not keeping pace, is a challenge for everyone and taxpayers should be scrutinous with where their hard earned money is allocated.