Ellsworth Public Library’s Funding Restored

At the Monday, July 20th Ellsworth City Council Meeting, the Council restored all funding for the upcoming year, but work needs to begin now for diversification of funding for the 2021-2022 year!

According to Benjamin Speed who was at the meeting

The city council has reduced cuts to the library budget for this year, buying the library time to find funding diversification in the coming year. Councilor Hamilton discusses the update concerning the Library at about 55 minutes into the meeting, while Councilor Hamilton summarizes things at about an hour in: https://www.facebook.com/ellsworthme/videos/610063463256277/

The City Council decided to fill the $30,000 with additional carryover funds. Therefore the $100,000 that was to be reduced will be filled in by the general fund. The tax burden will still be $100,000 less to taxpayers. The library will continue to operate for this year without those $100,000 cuts, but will need to start work on fund diversification immediately, as next year there will be no fund balance to draw from. A task force of city council, library trustees and the public will need to be formed immediately as the FY21 budget will be due to City Council in January, just 6 months from now.

Here is a statement released this evening on our "Support Ellsworth Public Library" Facebook page:

"Thank you to all of you who stood with the library! The $100,000 that was cut from the library budget has been restored. Your emails and phone calls to the council helped prove how important the library was to this community. The city saw you standing with the library! Thank you also to the City Council for listening to us all and for working with the library for this year's budget.
Great news tonight, but there is still work to be done for the next year. So we'll celebrate tonight and then get ready to keep working together to support our library the way they support all of us!"