Blog Archives

Libraries gear up to help R.I. job hunters

6/14/2012

By Dave Bloss
Rhode Island Library Report

FOSTER – June 14 - Luke Esser knows he wants to work outdoors. An Eagle Scout with one semester left before graduation from the Community College of Rhode Island, he needs a job.

His major at CCRI is Land Surveyor Technology. He started his job search by checking the Yellow Pages and send letters to 50 surveyors. No luck.

The next stop on his job hunt? The Foster Public Library, where library director Kristen Chin and Foster Director of Human Services Karen Mauro are conducting a program to help residents of the rural western Rhode Island town find jobs.

Chin and Mauro received training from a Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training employee so they would be familiar with all the online information the department provides in addition to job listings.

KAREN MAURO, Foster human services director

Libraries all across Rhode Island are gearing up to provide more job hunting assistance, taking on a role created in part because the Department of Labor and Training has announced plans to lay off as many as 70 of its own employees.

After completing their training, Chin and Mauro used flyers and a local monthly newspaper to announce the first training at the library.

Esser, who lives in Foster and was homeschooled before entering CCRI, was more than happy to attend. He says he already uses the library three or four times a week, for books and because he has no Internet connection at home.

LUKE ESSER is using Foster library for job search.

Chin and Mauro took Esser through the EmployRI website. When they couldn’t find a job match for land surveyor technician, Esser said he would be happy to work as a carpenter. The website listed six carpenter’s helper jobs that would pay between $8 and $17 per hour.

Navigating deeper into the website, Chin and Mauro showed tips on resume writing, self-assessment, identifying education program and analyzing the local job market.

Mauro had no problem relating to Esser. Ten years ago, she lost her management job for a large company that ran 64 nursing homes.
Her position was eliminated and she found herself in a Department of Labor and Training office trying to figure out her professional future.

As it turns out, her volunteer work for the Foster Human Services office grew into a full-time job a year ago. “I see a lot of people of all ages in Foster looking for work,” Mauro said. “Anytime I can get resources to help, I’m happy.”

Chin will continue to conduct job hunting sessions, adjusting the schedule to accommodate town residents.

Esser says he’ll continue coming to the library and checking the website, looking for that one connection to get his career up and running.

FOSTER CENTER LIBRARY, one of two libraries in the town. The other is the Tyler Free Library, Moosup Valley.

Providence Community Library funding increase depends on improved city finances

6/13/2012

THE ROCHAMBEAU BRANCH is one of nine run by the Providence Community Library.

By Brian C. Jones
Rhode Island Library Report

PROVIDENCE (June 13) The Taveras administration hopes to increase funding to the Providence Community Library, which operates the city’s nine branch libraries – but only when the city’s finances improve enough to boost other municipal services as well.

David Ortiz, spokesman for Mayor Angel Taveras, said that there’s no indication how soon an uptick might be. The city's finances have been desperate this year and unusual steps were needed to raise new revenues and cut employee costs.

Ortiz, in an interview with the Rhode Island Library Report on June 12, said the 10 percent cut in branch system’s allocation was part of an overall effort to trim city spending, and that the administration supported the city council’s later effort restore some of the money.

“The city’s financial emergency was well documented,” Ortiz said, saying the city “needed to balance maintenance of vital services, such as the Providence Community Library and all the services the city provides, with the fiscal reality as we focused on the deep structural budget deficit and faced a cash crisis.”

The administration and the council worked cooperatively in fashioning a budget that would “move Providence forward,” he said. “The council took the initiative to identify a way to restore some funds that the PCL was slated to (lose), and the administration was supportive of the initiative.”

The branch system, in the budget that ends June 30 year received $3.5 million from the city, but that was reduced by about $355,000 in the proposed spending plan. PCL officials said that with the system already running as lean as possible, the scope of the cut might have forced a temporary shutdown this summer, perhaps by rotating weekly closings among the nine branches.

Further, the cut was seen by PCL as threatening all or some of the annual state grant-in-aid that the branch system gets, which this year totals more than $784,000 and is a key element of the system’s nearly $4.8 million budget. State law requires communities to maintain at least current levels of spending to qualify for aid, which then is calculated as a percentage of municipal library support.

But with the backing of council members, including Terrence M. Hassett, the council’s finance committee on June 5 restored $150,000 of the funds by transferring money out of the public works capital improvements account.

Ortiz was noncommittal as to when the library allocation would grow.

“Like all budgets, the administration, the city council and the internal auditor will monitor city finances closely,” Ortiz said.

“In future years, as the city’s fiscal situation improves and allows us to grow the economy and grow jobs in the city, we look forward to providing more support to the library” and other services residents expect from the city, he said.

The full council approved the budget, with the added library funds, June 11.

Providence Community Library gets $150,000 restored to 2012-2013 budget

6/6/2012

By Dave Bloss
Rhode Island Library Report

          PROVIDENCE - (June 5) - Providence Community Library advocates and the Providence City Council appear to be on the same page, even when the Council is unable to sustain city funding for the system.

         While praising PCL for its hard work since 2009 in taking over operations of nine branch libraries in Providence, the council’s Committee on Finance announced the restoration of $150,000 to PCL as the city finalizes a 2012-13 budget it plans to pass in the next two weeks.

         The council had originally cut PCL’s 2012-13 request by $355,000, but has now reduced that cut to $205,000. Assuming the city budget passes, PCL would receive $3,345,000 for 2012-13.

          The council shifted $150,000 from the city’s public works capital improvements account after a PCL lobbying campaign.

          PCL supporters took up most of the available seating in a small third-floor City Hall conference room. They heard Ward 12 Councilman Terrence M. Hassett praise PCL.

        “We’ve come a long way together. It’s such a pleasure to visit the libraries now and to see students learning and to see working reference libraries. You’ve worked hard to make computers available to the public. The city thanks you,” Hassett said as other city council members nodded in agreement.

          “You heard the public’s concern and you did your best to address it,” PCL Board of Directors secretary Linda Kushner told the council committee. “We’re not a city department, but we perform an important city function.”

          Kushner asked the council, the mayor’s office and the city finance department to work together with PCL to try to increase funding in 2013-14. The city has been trying to close huge budget deficits and had said it may have to go into bankruptcy, although that talk has quieted lately after contributions from the non-profit universities and hospitals in the city and a preliminary agreement to reduce city employee pension costs.

           In an e-mail to library supporters today, Patricia Raub, a PCL vice present and a founder of the group, praised the council's move, saying that the city council had worked with the office of Mayor Angel Tavares to restore a "substantial amount."

            "At a time that cities across the country are cutting library services, Providence has recognized the importance of vibrant libraries and helped to keep PCL operating effectively," Raub wrote.

               But Raub warned that the library system is hardly out of the woods after successive years of no increase in the budget.

          "We will not be able to continue to provide such quality services if the city does not increase its funding above the 2009 level" in the fiscal year that begins next July.
               With Brian C. Jones, RI Library Report writer.

Hassett says council will try to restore most of the proposed cuts to the city's allocation for the Providence Community Library

6/1/2012

    By Brian C. Jones
    R.I. Library Report writer

        PROVIDENCE - A key member of the Providence City Council said today (June 1) that he expects the council to restore at least three-fourths of the funds the city administration has proposed to cut from the annual allocation to the Providence Community Library ( PCL), which runs nine neighborhood libraries.
   Terrence M. Hassett, Ward 12, said “we are going to shoot for three-fourths” of the approximately $355,000 that the city’s proposed budget would take from the $3.5 million that the current funds the city provides for operation of the branch system.
   “I don’t want the casualties to be young children at a very formative point in their lives,” said Hassett, referring to one group of library users. Hassett, the council’s president pro tem and a member of the finance committee, vowed that “we will do our best” to reduce the cut.
   Hassett’s comments, in an interview with the Rhode Island Library Report, came after PCL officials said they had learned only recently of the proposed 10 percent cut in the city’s allocation, a reduction so large that it could force temporary closings of the branch libraries.
   Further, PCL officials said that any community’s reduction in local support of its libraries can jeopardize future state library aid, because state law requires municipalities to maintain at least current levels of funding to qualify for annual grants-in-aid.
   Ellen Schwartz, the treasurer of the PCL’s board, said in an interview Thursday that if a cut of the magnitude of $355,000 were to stick, the system might have to close the libraries in some fashion, including a rotating shutdown, with one of the nine libraries off-line each week.
     “These are horrible choices,”Schwartz said, apologizing at weeping while describing the possible measures that the branch system would have to make, all of them affecting the system’s 70 workers, as well as library patrons.

   Meanwhile, the Providence Public Library, which separately operates the big library in downtown Providence, said it, too, could lose at least some state aid, even though the amount of its state support is based on its endowment, not the amount of city funding to the branches.
   Tonia Mason, marketing and communications director, said today that because state support is based not just on municipal funding, but overall hours of operation and staffing of all libraries citywide, that its funding could be affected in future years if the branch system is forced to scale back.
   Hassett said that reduction in library funds in the budget proposed by Mayor Angel Taveras’ administration is “very concerning to the council because of the impact” it could have on the neighborhood libraries, including those in his district.
   The Smith Hill Library, in desperate need of repairs, is a vital institution in its neighborhood, and on any given day, Hassett said, “is packed with young children doing book reports and mothers and fathers helping children in the reference section.”
   “The use of that library is extraordinary,” Hassett said. “You actually absorb the impact when you walk through it like I have. Go in and watch the kind of energy you see in that kind of place.”
   The city council has the final say on the new budget, which takes effect July 1.
   With the city facing severe financial difficulties – at one point experts raised the possibility of bankruptcy – Hassett was asked how the council could find the money to maintain most of the current level of library funding.
   Noting his 15 years on the council, Hassett replied that small amounts of money could be shifted from a number of other accounts in the budget to the library.
      “I know where the bodies are. You have to be creative,” he said, but conceded that “ it’s work.”

   Schwartz, the PCL treasurer, said the branch system’s overall budget is $4,795,450, so that the city’s appropriation of $3,500,000 is a major portion, as is the state’s $784,405 grant-in-aid, with the rest of the money coming from cash and book donations.
   Last year, when the branch system faced a similar 10 percent cut for the current fiscal year, the city put the money back, but officials warned that there might be reduction in the following budget, Schwartz said. But it was the size of the proposal that shocked officials, she said.
   Patricia Raub, one of the founders of the PCL and a vice president of its board of directors, told library supporters in an e-mail May 26 that the city’s budget architects may not have understood the ramifications of such a big reduction.
   “City administrators may not be aware that cut of this magnitude could force PCL to close its nine libraries for up to nine weeks between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013,” Raub wrote. “Such closings will see our kids out on the streets (and) endanger the summer reading program.”
   Raub said that PCL representatives had spoken at a hearing by the council’s finance committee last month, and urged library supporters to lobby their council representatives as the finance committee continued to work on the budget.
   Hassett said the message is well understood by the city council, saying the branch system “has the full support of the city council.” The council will work to make sure that the library budget is a priority, he said.
   The Providence Community Library in 2009 took over management of the nine branch libraries, which had been run by the Providence Public Library, following a bitter community debate about the Providence Public Library’s proposed closings and reductions of the branch system.
   Despite that background, Mason, the Public Library spokesperson, expressed sympathy with the pressures facing the PCL group, saying the financial difficulties were similar to those it faced when it operated the branches.
   “It’s a hard road,” Mason said, “when you have a number of neighborhoods and districts where people are dependent on these services.”
(An earlier version of this story was posted this morning. The Library Report will continue to update this story)

Providence Community Library raises alarm over big reduction in city's annual support

6/1/2012

By Brian C. Jones
R.I. Library Report writer

            PROVIDENCE - The city apparently has proposed reducing its $3.5 million appropriation for libraries, according to the Providence Community Library, which operates nine branch libraries.
     The cut would slice about $355,000 from the city's support, and, next year, put in jeopardy the $784,000 grant-in-aid that PCL gets from the state, library officials said.
        Library officials are hoping that the city council and administration will restore most of the funds before the budget is finalized.
      However, if the reduction stands, the PCL may be forced to temporarily close the branches, the very action it has tried to avoid since successfully winning the right to manage the branch system nearly three years ago.
     Meanwhile, a cut in city support could trigger a reduction in state aid, which requires Rhode Island communities to appropriate at least as much money in one year as in the past.
       A local cut can put in question a community's entire grant-in-aid, and even if the state orders a "waiver," the grant will be reduced, since it is calculated as a percentage of a community's library budget allocation.

Libraries gear up to help R.I. job hunters

Providence Community Library funding increase depends on improved city finances

Providence Community Library gets $150,000 restored to 2012-2013 budget

Hassett says council will try to restore most of the proposed cuts to the city's allocation for the Providence Community Library

Providence Community Library raises alarm over big reduction in city's annual support

The LIBRARY LINE

Archives

Categories