Last month, as state Rep. John Scibak (D-South Hadley) fought to get included in the House budget an amendment to preserve the Western Mass. Regional Library System, he was surprised by the resistance he encountered from colleagues from the Boston area, he said.
That level of opposition led him to wonder if there’s another reason WMRLS is being targeted for elimination—one that has less to do with a general insensitivity to the needs of this part of the state, and more to do with a specific attempt to prop up the struggling library system in Boston.
State aid to the Boston Public Library has been cut dramatically, from $8.9 million last year to a proposed $2.4 million in the coming fiscal year. In response to those cuts, the BPL’s Board of Trustees has voted to close four of its 26 branches and lay off 77 employees.
That plan has sparked strong opposition from residents. It also prompted Boston-area legislators to add to the House budget amendments that would eliminate the $2.4 million in library funds, as well as an additional $600,000 in state aid, unless the city commits to keeping all 26 branches open. Not all members of the Boston delegation supported that move, however, most notably Rep. Angelo Scaccia, who served on the BPL’s Board of Trustees from 2000-2008, part of the time as vice chairman.
(The BPL is not only scuffling with those legislators who are threatening to withhold its funding—it’s also embroiled in a controversy involving a former state legislator turned lobbyist. According to a recent article in Commonwealth magazine, Maryanne Lewis, a one-time state rep. from Scituate, had been hired as a lobbyist for the BPL by a former board president, Bernard Margolis. Lewis (who is reportedly considering a run for the U.S. 10th District Congressional seat) has sued the BPL, seeking $32,000 she says she is still owed under the contract. BPL trustees say they never authorized the deal and that Lewis, in fact, did no work for the library. The BPL has filed a countersuit seeking the $46,000 Lewis has already been paid, as well as damages.)
Even without the $2.4 million in state aid, the Boston Public Library is guaranteed other funds under the law that created the regional library system. The BPL is the headquarters of the Boston Regional Library System, which includes 145 libraries, and therefore receives funds designated for regional systems. In fiscal 2010, the Boston Region received $900,000 in state funds.
In addition, the law designates the BPL the “library of last recourse for reference and research services for the commonwealth” a designation that entitles it to 50 cents in state aid for each Massachusetts resident. In 2010, that came to $2.64 million.
That law also includes a funding schedule for regional library systems that favors regions with smaller communities, on the assumption that providing services on a smaller scale is costlier. Regional library systems with fewer than 500 residents per square mile receive $2.41 per capita. The higher the region’s population, the less money it gets, with regions with the largest populations—1,000 people or more per square mile—receiving just $1.70 per capita.
That formula, Scibak noted, benefits WMRLS, with its large geographic coverage and relatively sparse population. (In fiscal 2010, the western region received almost $1.6 million, compared to the Boston Region’s $900,000.) But if the western region is merged with the more densely populated regions in the east, he added, its lower population figures will benefit the consolidated region, increasing the per capita aid it receives.
“I think this is entirely about funding,” Scibak said, “They want one regional library system to maximize the reimbursement they’re going to get.”
And Scibak predicts the new, consolidated system will end up in Boston. “I find it hard to believe that the Boston Public Library would sit back and let the Board of Library Commissioners reduce the number of regions to one, and not let it be Boston,” he said. “We’re looking at a lot of political clout at the Boston Public Library”—at the expense of western Massachusetts’ libraries.”
This piece is a companion to “Library Consolidation, No!“
