January 25, 2008: BOCC Special Meeting

As you know, a $5 million shortfall was discovered in the County budget last year. All libraries had their budgets cut by 20% in January, 2007.

As a result, we had very little money to spend on new books, audio books, and movies. And, we lost Sharon, one of our part-time employees.

Another $10 million MUST BE CUT from the new County budget as soon as possible, but nothing was decided at the November 7th meeting. It seems as though the final budget decisions for all Monroe County Divisions, including us, will be made at the Special BOCC Meeting set for January 25^th which will be held in Key West.

The Special BOCC Meeting is open to the public, please attend if you can. Get there early, so you can fill in the required forms, if you wish to be heard by the BOCC members. Otherwise, you can watch it on television, or on a computer with a broadband feed from our County’s Web site at:
www.monroecounty-fl.gov. Click on the link for “Watch MCTV Live.”

We'd like to thank everyone who's gone to bat for us since these budget cuts and consequent cutbacks in service became an issue. It’s heart-warming to discover how much we mean to so many of our loyal patrons. We hope that your phone calls and letters to the County Commissioners, plus your letters to the newspapers have made the commissioners aware of how important the libraries are to our community.

On a lighter note, please don’t forget that we’ll be closed Monday and Tuesday for Christmas. Plan ahead, and grab your holiday reading and/or entertainment goodies no later than tomorrow.

We’ll also be closed on Tuesday, January 1st for New Year’s Day.

Please have a happy and safe time during this year-end holiday season.