Award Winning Author to Speak for Library Benefit

FY14 State Budget Conference Items - Action Needed

Last week the Senate finished and voted on its version of the FY 2014 budget.  See Cindy Roach’s email of 5/24/13 for full details. 

The Speaker of the House and Senate President will each appoint 3 members to serve on the Conference Committee very soon.   The line items below will be considered by the Conference Committee since the Senate and House versions and language differ for these accounts. 

7000-9101              For the operation of the board of library commissioners

WMLA Supports the Senate Budget figure:               $1,018,754     

                                                          House Budget                  $1,012,047

  

7000-9401              For state aid to regional public libraries; provided, that the board of library commissioners may provide quarterly advances of funds for purposes authorized by clauses (1) and (2) of section 19C of chapter 78 of the General Laws, as it considers proper, to regional public library systems throughout each fiscal year, in compliance with the office of the comptroller’s regulations on state grants, 815 CMR 2; provided further, that notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, in calculating the fiscal year 2013 distribution of funds appropriated in this item, the board of library commissioners shall employ population figures used to calculate the fiscal year 2012 distribution; and provided further, that notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, the library of the commonwealth shall receive not less than thirty-five and nine tenths cents for each resident of the commonwealth

WMLA Supports the Senate Budget figure:                      $9,731,475

                                                      House Budget                            $9,279,475

 

*** IMPORTANT:   Ask your legislators to support the SENATE version, since Boston would get an additional $150,000 and MLS would get a much-needed increase of $350,000. 

 

Advocates please emphasize to all legislators – House and Senate Leadership, those legislators who are appointed to Conference and those who are not – that the Senate bottom line increase for this account MUST be approved in order to benefit both BPL and MLS.  If the lower House total is passed, and the Senate language increasing the BPL per capita remains, the increase for BPL will be taken from the MLS budget.   

 

This happened in the past to the Regional Systems, and some legislators did not realize the unintended consequence of only approving the per capita increase.  They thought they were passing an increase for the Regions, when the actual result was a cut.  We need them to understand that “You can’t increase BPL’s per capita without increasing the bottom line.”

 

7000-9506              For the technology and automated resource sharing networks

                                                     Senate Budget                             $1,929,238  

WMLA Supports the House Budget figure:                         $2,129,238

 

Contact your legislators as soon as possible.

 

 

Advocacy in D.C.

On May 7- 8, 2013, hundreds of library supporters from all across the country convened in Washington DC for National Library Legislative Day. They were briefed on legislative issues affecting libraries and met with their members of Congress to discuss them.  Massachusetts Libraries were well represented on Capitol Hill.  A number of MA librarians brought our message to our Congressional delegation.  For the first time, the Western Massachusetts Library Advocates (WMLA) sponsored an advocate of our own.  Betty Johnson, Colrain, reports on her trip to our nation’s capital:

It was a great opportunity.  There were 4 of us from Massachusetts-in the photograph, Julie Farrell, Library Media Specialist-Overlook Middle School, Ashburnham; Betty Johnson, Director-Griswold Memorial Library, Colrain; Senator Elizabeth Warren; Cindy Roach, MBLC-Head of Library Advisory and Development; Dianne Carty, MBLC-Acting Director.

We had individual appointments with all the Massachusetts legislative delegation.  Most of the visits were with Aides but they were very receptive to our requests.  LSTA funding was the major talking point.  With sequestration the funding level is down of course and will affect the number of grants that the MBLC is able to award.  ALA is asking for LSTA funding to return to the 2010 level.  Julie spoke to the legislators about school issues as she was representing the MSLA.  We wholeheartedly thanked the legislators for all their support of libraries.  Cindy said our delegation is very supportive. 

My husband and I drove down on Monday and stayed at the Kellogg Conference Hotel at Gallaudet University.  A shuttle bus went back and forth from the university to Union Station all day, so it was very convenient.  I was able to visit the Martin Luther King Memorial and the Library of Congress building.  The Library is beautiful if you ever get a chance to see it.

On Tuesday morning there was a conference meeting at The Liaison Capitol Hill with a delicious continental breakfast.  Many states had much bigger groups of librarians represented.  After a lunch at the Billy Goat Tavern, our group met with several Congressional Aides and ended our day with a reception in the Hart Senate building.

On Wednesday, it was very exciting to visit the House and Senate Office buildings. We met with the rest of the Congressional Aides and actually had the chance to speak to Congresswoman Tsongas and Congressman Keating.  We had lunch at the Tortilla Coast, and ended the day with the Meet and Greet with Senator Warren. Our meet and greet with Senator Warren was in the Visitor's Center of the Capitol Building.

Thursday we drove home to the real world. 

Here is a link to handouts and information covered in the briefing on Tuesday: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/nlld

Contact Your State Senator - Time is Short!

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! 

Rock for the Library Benefit Set for this Saturday in South Hadley

Taplin Scholarship Winners 2013

Congratulations to the 2013 winners of the Franklin P. Taplin Scholarships:

Tomi Eve                  Jones Library, Amherst 
Lee Appelbaum        West Stockbridge Public Library
Benjamin Kalish        Forbes Library, Northampton
Gale LaScala            Hamilton Memorial Library, Chester

Each of these winners will receive a $250 stipend to support their attendance at the Massachusetts Library Association Annual Conference in Cambridge.  These scholarships are awarded in memory of Franklin P. Taplin in order to support western Massachusetts library staff as they extend their experience and gain information from opportunities that conferences offer. 

 

Enjoy the conference.

Contacting Your Legislators – It’s Easy

A key part of our jobs as library supporters is to make sure that our legislators, a major source of funding for many programs critical to our libraries, are aware of what we need and how important these programs are to our users.  If you don’t know your legislators personally or have them on speed dial, the fastest most efficient way to contact them is to use the CapWiz service provided by the Massachusetts Library Association (MLA).
 
Go to the Massachusetts Library Association homepage.  Scroll down to Advocacy, and select CapWiz.  This is a PERFECT place to locate all you need to know about contacting Legislators.  Click on My Elected Officials, fill in your address and click GO.  CapWiz will provide direct email links to the Governor, your State Representative and Senator.  Click on each, cut and paste your message, send and you’re Almost done. 

Massachusetts is fortunate to have a Library Legislative Caucus.  It’s important to keep the caucus posted on your library related issues.  Please send another message to Kate.Hogan@mahouse.gov.  Representative Hogan is Chair of the Massachusetts Library Legislative Caucus.

Keeping your legislators informed is easy, thanks to CapWiz.

Support Library Funding Amendments Now!

To our library community,
Massachusetts Library Association (MLA) is grateful for and supportive of all the recent amendments filed by legislators on behalf of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC) budget. MLA has chosen to focus on certain amendments and urge you to contact your legislators before next week's vote on the state budget.

If your legislators have signed onto the amendments, please thank them.  If they have not, please let your legislators know that you want their support on these line items and amendments.  The 4 amendments in 3 line items with their lists of legislators signing on are at the end of this email.

Item 7000-9501 Amendment 181 State Aid to Libraries increase

Item 7000-9506 Amendment 468 Restoration of funds for Library Technology and Automated Resources

Item 7000-9401 Amendment 506 Boston Digitization project funding

                        Amendment 535 Restoration of at least $100,000 to MA Library System

From the Western Massachusetts Library Advocates on behalf of Beverly Shank and Susan McAlister, Co-chairs of the MLA Legislative Committee.

Amendment #181 to H.3400

State Aid to Public Libraries
Representatives Humason of Westfield, Hogan of Stow, Galvin of Canton, Pignatelli of Lenox, Durant of Spencer, Vega of Holyoke, Scibak of South Hadley, Beaton of Shrewsbury, Cutler of Duxbury, Vieira of Falmouth, Smizik of Brookline, Campbell of Methuen, Boldyga of Southwick, Smola of Palmer, Gifford of Wareham, Roy of Franklin, Dwyer of Woburn, D'Emilia of Bridgewater, Jones of North Reading and Mannal of Barnstable move to amend the bill in section 2, in item 7000-9501, by striking out the figures "$6,823,657" and inserting in place thereof the figures "$9,989,844." 

Amendment #468 to H.3400

Library Technology and Automated Resources Representatives Atkins of Concord, Andrews of Orange, DiNatale of Fitchburg, Fresolo of Worcester, McMurtry of Dedham, Dykema of Holliston, Kocot of Northampton, Kaufman of Lexington, Puppolo of Springfield, Ashe of Longmeadow, Calter of Kingston, Farley-Bouvier of Pittsfield, Fox of Boston, Gordon of Bedford, Keefe of Worcester, Khan of Newton, Madden of Nantucket, Scibak of South Hadley, Turner of Dennis, Peake of Provincetown, Finn of West Springfield, Mannal of Barnstable, Mark of Peru, Rosa of Leominster, Walsh of Framingham, Walsh of Boston, Garry of Dracut, Devers of Lawrence, Rogers of Cambridge, Schmid of Westport, O'Day of West Boylston and Timilty of Milton move to amend the bill in section 2, in item 7000-9506, by striking out the figures “1,929,238” and inserting in place thereof the figures “3,788,000”.

Amendment #506 to H.3400

For Free Digitization for Public Libraries in the Commonwealth Representatives Rushing of Boston, Moran of Boston, Hogan of Stow, Malia of Boston, Forry of Boston, Henriquez of Boston, Collins of Boston, Honan of Boston, Fox of Boston and Basile of Boston move to amend the bill in section 2, by striking out item 7000-9401 and inserting in place thereof the following item:-

7000-9401 For state aid to regional public libraries; provided, that the board of library commissioners may provide quarterly advances of funds for purposes authorized by clauses (1) and (2) of section 19C of chapter 78 of the General Laws, as it considers proper, to regional public library systems throughout each fiscal year, in compliance with the office of the comptroller‘s regulations on state grants, 815 CMR 2.00; provided further, that notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, in calculating the fiscal year 2012 distribution of funds appropriated in this item, the board of library commissioners shall employ population figures used to calculate the fiscal year 2010 distribution; and provided further, that notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, the library of the commonwealth shall receive not less than 38.3 cents for each resident of the commonwealth ............................... $9,279,475

Amendment #535 to H.3400

Regional Libraries and the Library of the Commonwealth Representatives Atkins of Concord, Andrews of Orange, DiNatale of Fitchburg, Dykema of Holliston, Kaufman of Lexington, Fresolo of Worcester, McMurtry of Dedham, Puppolo of Springfield, Kocot of Northampton, Ashe of Longmeadow, Calter of Kingston, Fox of Boston, Gordon of Bedford, Keefe of Worcester, Khan of Newton, Farley-Bouvier of Pittsfield, Madden of Nantucket, Peake of Provincetown, Scibak of South Hadley, Turner of Dennis, Finn of West Springfield, Mannal of Barnstable, Mark of Peru, Walsh of Boston, Rosa of Leominster, Walsh of Framingham, Devers of Lawrence, Forry of Boston, Garry of Dracut, Rogers of Cambridge and Schmid of Westport move to amend the bill in section 2, in item 7000-9401, by striking out the figures “9,131,475” and inserting in place thereof the figures “10,940,475”.

The American Bookmobile in Pictures

For those of us who worked with and valued the service of bookmobiles to the Western Region and to library users in general, check out this entry in BookRiot.

Groundbreaking for the new South Hadley Public Library

Legislative CALL (EMAIL, WRITE) to Action

With Library Legislative Breakfast season having just completed (as well as Legislative Day), there are a few key pieces of information that we have received from our elected officials that should be shared, statewide. 

We were told repeatedly, by multiple legislators, that the MBLC’s Legislative Agenda is a quite reasonable financial request.  Additionally, that revenues should be increasing this year—and with our libraries having taken such a hit in recent years, that “now is the time” to hopefully bring some of that lost funding back.

However, we need to do a better job of building the case for the needs of our libraries.  Senator Knapik informed us that his office has received, for example, about 400 communications on the topic of gun control.  To be heard in this climate, we need our users to mount a letter-writing campaign on behalf of our libraries.  High volume messages might be the extra bump needed to push a funding increase over the finish line.

So, what can we do?

Thanks to Commissioner Mary Kronholm and WMLA President Christopher Lindquist, we have 3 forms (one for the Governor, your local Senator, and your local Representative) that we encourage you to print and make available for your patrons to sign.  It is a brief statement that can be copied and pasted, and will fit onto a postcard.  This may seem like a small gesture, but every bit counts and every message that our elected officials receive will go far towards making all of our libraries stronger.

Can you get 10 of your patrons to sign and mail in cards?  Twenty?  More?  If we all pull together on this, we can really make a difference for all of us.  It’s up to us! 

Samples follow.  Thanks so much for your advocacy on behalf of our libraries!!!!

(Some libraries are providing the cards and their Friends are supplying the postage.)

(1) Dear Representative _________________________,

I ask for your continued support for the following budget items so our

library  can continue to provide, maintain and improve patron services when the
demand on libraries is at an all-time high:

* State Aid to Public Libraries (7000 – 9501)

* Automated Networks/ Library Technology  and  Resource Sharing (7000 – 9506)
* Massachusetts Library System/ State Aid to Regional Libraries and the
    Library for the Commonwealth (7000 – 9401)

      Thank you,

____________________________________________    TOWN NAME, Massachusetts
 

(2) Dear Senator _______________________________,

I ask for your continued support for the following budget items so our

library  can continue to provide, maintain and improve patron services when the
demand on libraries is at an all-time high:

* State Aid to Public Libraries (7000 – 9501)

* Automated Networks/ Library Technology  and  Resource Sharing (7000 – 9506)
* Massachusetts Library System/ State Aid to Regional Libraries and the Library for the Commonwealth (7000 – 9401)

      Thank you,

 ____________________________________________    TOWN NAME, Massachusetts

 

(3) Dear Governor Patrick,

The Massachusetts Public Library Construction Program has partnered

with local and state officials from more than 200 communities to build new
or expand and renovate existing libraries. The Massachusetts Board of
Library Commissioners is seeking a $150 million bond bill to fund library
construction projects that are currently on a waiting list and run a new
grant round.  We all appreciate what this will do for Massachusetts’
communities.  Please continue to support this effort.

  Thank you,

 ___________________________________________   TOWN NAME , Massachusetts

WMLA Scholarships to MLA ~ DEADLINE EXTENDED!

The deadline for applications to the Western Massachusetts Library Advocates (WMLA) scholarships to the 2013 Massachusetts Library Association (MLA) Annual Conference has been extended. 

WMLA is providing 4 scholarships of up to $250 each to cover conference registration, meals and travel to the MLA Annual Conference which will be held at the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge from Wednesday, April 24 to Friday, April 26, 2013.  The program schedule is available on the MLA website.

Please submit a brief paragraph explaining why you want to attend the conference by April 16th to Chris Lindquist at clindquist@westath.org. Preference will be given to first time attendees, but others will be considered. The recipients of the scholarships will be selected by April 17th.