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The Pequot Library is open to the public, but it is privately owned and operated by a nonprofit group. Fairfield normally contributes $350,000 to the library each year, which accounts for more than a third of its total budget.
The Board of Finance voted 5-4 to cut that funding this July. The move was a part of more than $2.6 million in cuts the board made Tuesday night.
“The fact of the matter is, either we’re serious about reducing our tax increase or we’re not,” finance board vice-chair Robert Bellitto said Tuesday. “This is what making tough choices looks like. And as much as I think it’s a fair point that this type of a cut would be significant to the Pequot Library, I don’t know that it mean that they’re going to shut their doors. But even if it did, we have two other libraries in town that provide services to our citizens.”
Pequot Library Executive Director Martha Gates Lord said Tuesday that the move would make it difficult for the library to stay open without the town’s funding. The library has an endowment of more than $2.6 million as of its 2011-2012 annual report. Most of that money is in restricted accounts, and could not be used to make up for the shortfall, Lord said.
“We at the library want to share in the sacrifice that we all have to make,” Pequot Library Board of Trustees President William Russell said Tuesday. “If we are treated inordinately in terms of our particular cuts, we’re not only going to suffer as an institution that we love, but we’re going to hurt Fairfield.”
Board member Chris DeWitt suggested that the library might be able to raise the funds privately, or open only a few days per week. But dissenting board members said they felt that the library would not be able to recover in the three months before the funding would be lost.
“I just can’t justify taking the knees out of an institution,” board member James Brown said before the vote. “If we’re going to make reductions of this magnitude…I believe there should be a fair amount of time for them to adjust.”
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