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Dear Dallas Public Library Advocate -
We want to alert you to an urgent need for you to speak up for the Dallas Public Library and the promises the City Council made last year to increase library hours over two years.
This Wednesday, September 2nd, the Dallas City Council will hear a plan to cut
$24.4 million from the current proposed 2015 - 16 budget. This proposal was made in response to Council members members who want more money for streets or the tax rate to be cut.
If the budget cut is approved, the Dallas Public Library system will lose $2.35 million--
additional dollars that were promised to allow more hours of service at 15 branch locations, as well as money for computers for library classes.
We are writing to you today to ask that you please contact the Mayor and City Council member and urge them to KEEP THE PROMISE and support the City Manager's two-year plan to add hours to our libraries.
Here is what the City Manager has proposed for the library next year--and what we were hoping for:
The proposed library budget is increasing by $4.4 million. Of this, roughly $1 million will cover merit-pay increases and other benefits that go to all city employees. These dollars do not add library services.
Another
$1 million covers the pay of people the library hired earlier this calendar year to help open our library doors. Those employees worked about half the year in fiscal 2015 and will work a full year in fiscal 2016.
The remaining
$2.35 million will provide for the additional hours that were promised last year as part of a two-year plan to finally restore library services cut in 2008, as well as some additional computers and technology improvements.
How can I help?
Visit this page to contact your Dallas City Councilperson TODAY. Please thank your elected official for supporting the proposed $4.4 million increase to the 2015-16 Dallas Public Library budget. Post to Facebook and Tweet your support for our libraries. Tag @1500Marilla and @FODPL #KeepLibraryPromises
We would like library supporters to attend the City Council meeting this Wednesday, September 2 at 9 am at City Hall when the library will present its budget and the budget-cut proposal will be introduced.
Please call our office if you can join us at 214.670.1458. We also need volunteers to attend on September 9, when the Council begins deliberations on the budget.
What is our message to our elected officials?
Any cut to this proposed budget means that last year's promise to add hours to all of our libraries will not be fulfilled. We want the city to KEEP THE PROMISE.
Please keep in mind that the library is just 2.7% of the city's General Fund. For a relatively small amount of money, our libraries change the lives of our residents every day. We thank them for their commitment to the two-year plan to add library hours.
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