Three amendments have been filed to adjust the Massachusetts
Senate budget. Please contact your
Senators (Brewer, Candaras, Downing, Knapik, Rosenberg, and Welch) and ask them
to sign on to these amendments. This
must be done today or tomorrow (May 19 – 20, 2013.)
This is important because if the Senate amendments are
adopted and the amounts are different from the House budget, the discussion
moves to the Budget Conference Committee.
If the amendments are not adopted and the budgets in both houses are the
same, the discussion is over for the year (unless the Governor vetoes a line
item.)
*Amendment 151
Library Technology and Automated Resources (7000-9506) filed by Ms. Clark & Ms.
Chandler.
This Amendment raises the budget line by $200,000 and
matches the House amount. If the Senate
and House amounts match, the line goes through at the higher amount. Among other things, like automated networks
funded in this line, are the Small Libraries in Networks grants so important to
small libraries in western Massachusetts.
*Amendment 103
Library of the Commonwealth (7000-9401) filed by Mr. Petruccelli.
Budget Line 7000-9401 funds both the Library of the Commonwealth
(Boston Public) and the MLS. This
amendment raises the per capita amount for Boston. It also raises the total figure for the line
item. If the per capita is raised
without the increase to the line, any increase for Boston would reduce the MLS
budget.
*Amendment 153 Aid
to Public Libraries (7000-9501) filed by
Mr. Eldridge.
This amendment increases
the amount available in the State Aid to Libraries program by $1,000,000. This would provide the first increase in
State Aid since 2010. This increase is
one of the MBLC's priorities for this year.
Every public library meeting basic requirements would benefit from this
increase. This amendment is still more
than $2,000,000 lower than what libraries shared in FY2009.
If our libraries want to have any impact on these budget
figures, we need to ask our Senators to sign onto the amendments and work
for their approval. The discussion will
be over by the end of the week. It's
time for phone calls and email!
