Budget Cuts? The Library Wants its Funds Restored

The Board of Finance and the Library Board disagree on how income from the Edith Wheeler Memorial Trust is to be used, with the library saying it is only to be used for expenses over and above its operating budget and finance board members clinging to a line in the trust document saying it can be used for "general expenses."

Until the issue is resolved, the Board of Finance voted against any non-contractual increases at budget time. Library staff members and supporters have been fighting to restore the library's funding request ever since.

As a number of residents discussed possible cuts to the $80.3 million town budget proposal after Tuesday's referendum defeat during a charter required meeting Thursday night, Thelma Kay Inderdohnen spoke up for the library.

Inderdohnen, a children's services librarian at Edith Wheeler Memorial Library and the former town clerk, read a letter from Marie Lederer, who could not make the meeting herself.

Lederer was friends with Edith Wheeler when Wheeler was alive, and said Wheeler had told her the trust was only to be used for special expenditures beyond the library's regular operating budget.

Lederer asked that all funding requested by Library Dir. Margaret Borchers and the Library Board of Directors be restored.

Lederer has deep roots in Monroe.

Inderdohnen said Lederer had served as Monroe's Social Services director for 27 years — with no office, no staff and no phone — and was a longtime Red Cross volunteer.

During the public comments session of the meeting, Steve Schapiro suggested taking $15,000 out of the roads budget and putting it into a reserve account until the library and Board of Finance agree on how the trust should be used.

Then if it is found that the trust cannot be used for the operating budget, he wants the $15,000 to go towards raises for the library's part-time staff, an amount that was cut from its budget request.