BANGOR, Maine — Sometime in August, the Bangor Public Library will begin the gargantuan undertaking of moving roughly half of its 500,000 volumes to a new location to make way for its major renovation and modernization project.
The library will move to a temporary location for 9 months to a year while construction takes place. The lesser-used collections and materials will stay at the historic Harlow Street location, but members of the public can still request them and a staffer will retrieve them within 24 hours, according to library director Barbara McDade.
Library officials plan to select the new temporary location around June 18. At this point, the most likely location is on Perry Road, but officials haven’t yet signed the lease.
Meanwhile, the library is creeping up on its $9 million fundraising goal, with just $13,000 left to go. Stephen and Tabitha King contributed $3 million, and Bangor voters approved a $3 million bond to replace the library’s leaky, century-old copper roof. The rest has been raised through extensive fundraising and private donations.
“This does tell the world that the people of Bangor are very proud of having a great library and that libraries are not going away anytime soon,” McDade said.
As library officials and its board press forward with the renovation efforts, they struggle to balance their modernization with a relatively stagnant budget.
During a budget workshop with five council members, the council approved the library’s request for $14,600 to fund a 2 percent cost-of-living increase in a 3-2 vote. Prior to that, the council planned on giving the library flat funding.
Still, the full council would need to approve keeping that $14,600 in the budget, and because only three councilors approved the funding, there is a chance other councilors might shoot down the request during budget deliberations leading up to a final vote June 23.
If that happens, McDade said the library’s board is considering reducing a staff position to support the cost-of-living increase.
Bangor Public Library, with a total budget of $2.3 million, is slated to receive $1.4 million from the city next year, but that’s $100,000 less than it was receiving from the city in 2008, according to McDade. The city has seen budgetary struggles of its own with decreasing municipal revenue sharing funding from the state and increasing state and federal mandates, and most of its departments have been shrunk in an effort to keep property taxes down. Those struggles also have reared their heads in the form of reduced funding for programs and departments.
In all the city has shed 55 municipal positions in the past two years. McDade said the library has 31 full-time-equivalent positions, 16 percent fewer than 2008.
“We have taken these cuts too, all along,” McDade said.
Some residents have criticized the library for providing too many benefits to its employees. Last week, Councilor Pauline Civiello questioned whether new library employees needed three weeks of vacation, with more weeks added the longer a person stays employed. Library workers also get 11 paid holidays
That’s because the library board wants its employees to receive the same benefits as other city employees, McDade said.
This year, Bangor is budgeting for a 2 percent cost of living raise for its employees. The city has 12 labor union contracts that included that increase. To be fair, the city extended that 2 percent raise to non-unionized employees as well, according to Assistant City Manager Robert Farrar.
City employees, whether unionized or not, have two weeks starting vacation, with added weeks for longevity, 12 paid holidays and 15 sick days.
The library has its own board of directors, so the city council has no official authority over line items in the library’s budget, but can cut its contributions to library operations. During Wednesday’s budget meeting, Lee Chick, president of the library’s board, expressed concerns the city sees the library as an “outside organization,” despite the fact it is “functionally and financially controlled by the city.”
He said if that sort of relationship continues, “our library will find its way to mediocrity in a hurry.”