Jan 18, 2018 2 min read

This letter is in response to the comments made at South Strabane Township’s Jan. 9 meeting that the supervisors are being sent a bill by Citizens Library.

This statement is in regard to the recent bylaws revision at Citizens Library.

While supervisors and municipalities may not realize it, there has always been a “bill” when it comes to having a seat as a board member for the library.

Previously, that number was 3 percent of all the local funding to the library. With local municipalities decreasing their funding since 2014, from $162,085 to a projected $49,076 for 2018, the value of that board seat went from $4,862 to $1,472.

We had many municipalities that regularly gave more than those amounts. South Strabane gave up to $26,000 just two years ago. But times have changed.

The change in bylaws that is mentioned in the article was designed to make the funding process fair and equitable for all municipalities and enable the library to create an annual budget and have some concrete idea of what would be coming in every year. As we are not a municipality, we do not have the ability to increase taxes to cover any shortfall in the funding. What we get from the municipalities is all we can get.

The revision in the bylaws was an eight-month process that was unanimously passed by the board of Citizens Library, a board that is made up of individuals representing six of the 14 municipalities that fund the library.

While the municipalities have decreased funding, Citizens Library continues to support and welcome the citizens of those municipalities, and all members of the public. Our mission at Citizens Library is to provide the resources to enrich, inform and educate the public.

We look forward to partnering with our 14 municipalities and school districts to continue to provide quality library services and programming.

David Franz

Morris