OLD ORCHARD BEACH — Officials from the Edith Belle Libby Memorial Library said the library will soon have to close its doors if the town does not provide more funding.
The library is a quasi-municipal organization, with a board of trustees and bylaws. It receives most of its funding from the town. In June, the town approved $180,900 for the library for the current fiscal year. Additionally, the town gave the library $6,000 in September to hire a part-time bookkeeper. Library officials are requesting $75,000 more in funding from the town, and met with the town council Wednesday night to discuss the matter.
“There’s just not enough money at this time to continue operating the library,” said Board of Trustees President Mary Ann Kotros.
This current year’s budget was developed by the former town finance director and is considerably lower than the $241,610 budget proposed earlier by library officials. It is also less than the $225,880 that the library received from the town last year.
A police investigation determined the library’s former bookkeeper, Linda Jenkins, embezzled about $140,000 from the library over a six-year period. Jenkins died in March, days after questions first arose regarding financial improprieties.
It is believed by town officials that Jenkins padded the budget. Board of Trustees Treasurer Doris Harris said the budget was not padded by the amount the budget was reduced from the original proposal, however, and the former town manager “decimated” the budget.
“We are between a rock and a hard place,” said Harris.
Councilor Robin Dayton questioned the immediacy of the need for money, noting that the library still has $78,500 left in its budget.
“We’re not falling off a cliff here,” she said. “Certainly not tomorrow, not next week, not next month.”
According to a signed agreement between the library and the town council, payroll funds cannot be transferred to operational funds and vice versa.
“Fifty-nine thousand dollars of that $78,000 is in payroll, and payroll can’t be used to pay the light bill,” said Harris, adding that the library has $19,000 in operational funds.
Library Director Lee Koenigs said the library’s operating expenses were “exhausted,” and there were bills “in float” right now that had not been accounted for in the $19,000.
“We were woefully under-funded,” she said. “And we are about to fall off that cliff.”
The library, she said, is currently on a spending freeze.
Councilor Laura Bolduc said this was “a learning year” for the town, as it is the first year line-item budgets were implemented, and the town council will be reviewing concerns in departmental budgets as well.
Council Chairwoman Sharri MacDonald asked library officials to provide the council with detailed information regarding budget shortfalls in specific areas. She said the council will work with the town manager and finance director to come up with a recommendation, which will be discussed either at the next regularly scheduled council meeting on Feb. 5 or at a special meeting before that.
“We’re going to fix this,” she said.
— Staff Writer Liz Gotthelf can be contacted at 282-1535 Ext. 325 or egotthelf@journaltribune.com.
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