Library board eats bills on old library as a show of 'goodwill' to the City Council

The city's library board and the City Council have had their go-rounds in recent years.

A few years ago, the debates centered on budget cutting and reorganization, and last year and this year, the debate turned to where to put the city's new library.

The council, on a close vote, opted to build the new library on what is now home to the TrueNorth insurance and financial services firm across Fourth Avenue SE from Greene Square Park, though the library board had decided it wanted it build on the site of Gazette Communications Inc.

Giant decisions, though, are to come, none of which will be larger than approving the design of the new $45-million library project.

With recent history in place and, no doubt, with the thought of the future to come, the library board in recent days agreed - in what Library Director Bob Pasicznyuk called a show of “goodwill” - to pay $84,000 from its current-year budget surplus to cover outstanding bills related to the flood-damaged former library on First Street SE. Some of the bills are associated with the city's need to maintain climate control in the 1985 former library, a cost that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had born until late February when the council picked the TrueNorth site for the new library.

Susan Corrigan, board president, and Doug Elliott, board vice president, also made the case for paying the bill.

Pasicznyuk reported to the board that city rules require the library, like other city departments, to roll over to the city's general fund any surplus in its budget at the end of the fiscal year on June 30.

The library will have about $300,000 in surplus, which comes from temporary staff cuts while the library operates out of smaller, temporary quarters and from some reimbursements from FEMA, the library director said.

By agreeing to cover the $84,000 outstanding bills associated with the 1985 library, the city also has tentatively agreed to allow the library to keep the rest of its surplus going into the new fiscal year, Pasicznyuk said.

The library board, which approved paying the bills on a 6-1 vote, also said it would cover bills at the old library for the next couple months if necessary.

The city on Wednesday is expected to begin to review proposals from bidders for the 1985 library with a view to selling it in short order. Two entities had bid as of last week, and a third has expressed interest in submitting a proposal, Mayor Ron Corbett has said.

Library board member Paul Pelletier was the lone vote against the plan to pay lingering bills from the old library.

Pelletier noted that the library board publicly had stated in the past that it did not want to pay additional costs related to the old library, and he noted, too, that the library board had a plan in place to quickly spend its $300,000 surplus before the end of June on library materials so it would not have to return any of it to the city's general fund.

Pelletier said he didn't understand why it was so important to be “team player” with the City Council.

Board member Elliott, though, said he wasn't sure it was responsible “in the long run” to quickly spend all of the library board's surplus on “library stuff.”

Board President Corrigan said being able to keep some $200,000 or the current surplus headed into next fiscal year will provide the library board with “flexibility” as it “ramps up” with the construction of the new library.

Pasicznyuk said he surely would remind the City Council as it prepares its next budget how the library board “stepped forward” this budget year.