The council simultaneously voted on three motions in order to finalize the 2016 budget: approving payment for a new furnace at the fire department through the TIF Fund as opposed to the Fire Equipment Reserve fund and transferring $100,000 from fund balance to G 1-369-03 Ambulance Reserve in January 2016. The third motion was to approve the expense budget for the General Fund and Enterprise Funds.
Once the motions carried, Councilor Shane McDougall moved to add a second full-time librarian position to the budget. Mayor Aiken told McDougall that it would not be possible to make additional changes now that the budget was approved. McDougall stated that it seemed like the three individual budget items were passed, not the entire 2016 budget.
“When you passed those three items, I didn’t hear ‘let’s pass the budget,’ I heard ‘let’s pass those three items.’” McDougall said.
“I read them all off,” said Aiken. “What you can do, at any point, is if you want money for the library, since the budget is now passed, you would have to have some cuts to the budget that correspond. At this point, that would be your option.”
City Manager Austin Bleess was not in favor of using one-time funds to prevent a potential mill increase, as it would only make matters worse in 2017.
“Spending one-time money on ongoing expenses is not a good idea,” said Bleess. “It will only further exasperate the structural deficiency we will be facing with the 2017 budget. By spending one-time funds and not funding capital equipment in 2016, we are simply kicking the can down the road.”
Bleess added that, as the council discussed on Nov. 23, there will be at least a $77,000 increase to 2017’s budget.
“By using one-time funds and not funding capital equipment in 2016 that will increase the amount we need to add in 2017 by $153,000, bringing the total to $230,00. A 7% increase in health insurance in 2017 would also mean another $76,000 increase. We don’t know what 2017 will bring for workers comp premiums, fuel oil prices, or anything else.”
Though the second full-time librarian position did not get funded, two speeches were given in support of funding this position during the meeting’s public comment period, before the council made their vote.
Gail Hagelstein, a member of the Caribou Library Board, did not believe that the increase in mill rate (estimated to be roughly $31 per year for a $95,000 home during the last budget workshop) would realistically cause a negative impact on residents who receive a fixed income.
“I’ve been subjected to rants, lectures, and venting about how the library is important,” said Hagelstein. “Maybe people don’t understand how expensive books are, so I brought two that I had purchased lately. This book, ‘The Sea and Civilization,’ is mine, this is $40. So at $35 on an average home, this is $5 more than that. That kinda puts that money in perspective, because a lot of us use more than $35 worth of library materials in a week.”
Hagelstein brought a petition about the library to the podium with her, which received over 300 signatures in a week and a half.
The petition read “We, the undersigned, recognize the evolution, in a short year and a half, of the Caribou Public Library. Bringing the aforementioned entity into the 21st century, with programming, technology, meeting spaces, and access to STEM and literacy skills. With this knowledge we realize the library is understaffed and demand the library stay open fully-staffed. This would mean filling a second full-time position.”
Katie Wilcox-Bosse, Youth Services Director for the Caribou Public Library, also spoke about the importance of providing the library with a second full-time position.
“As a past childhood patron of the library, I have firsthand knowledge of the important role the programs play in educating our community youth. It’s not just checking out books. When young patrons step into the children’s room, they are introduced to an environment of learning through play. Play is the way children learn. Many homeschool patrons even take the learning enrichment that I give them during the program and add it to their educational portfolio to show the state of Maine that, yes, they are learning valuable information.”
