Bridgeport PL Faces Major Cuts

The Bridgeport Public Library (BPL), CT, faces a budget cut of some $1.1 million, more than one-quarter of the current year's operating budget, which would result in the loss of 25 of 68 full-time staff members and close the system's three branch libraries. “We are getting back to basics, police, fire, and education,” Mayor Bill Finch told the Connecticut Post, explaining his strategy for dealing with a $16 million budget deficit. “Libraries are not essential services.”

The library had plans to reopen another newly renovated branch in late summer and deploy a nearly new bookmobile, and library advocates have fought back. “You'll probably have a ribbon-cutting ceremony and then lock the doors,” library board member Sylvester L. Salcedo told the Post regarding the Black Rock Branch. “And the bookmobile? It'll never get out of the garage.”

BPL's Board of Directors president James O'Donnell, in an April 2 letter to the mayor, argued, “The implication that our libraries increase the tax burden in an unnecessary or disproportionate manner...is simply false.” He continued, “Your proposal...would slash the only service in the city that assists the education of all citizens.”

Library director Scott Hughes, who called the mayor's proposal “a shock” in the Post, told LJ there's still an opportunity for a different budget scenario, including the potential invocation of a previously unenforced city ordinance that would excuse BPL from the mayor's cuts. The city's budget must be approved by June 10 to be enacted July 1.