Nov. 20, 2024 7:45p
(WGTD)---The Racine City Council voted unanimously to adopt a new budget Tuesday night. The vote came at the end of an unusually long process over several weeks that included discussion of numerous amendments, including some made at the last minute.
The council voted to restore $200,000 from Mayor Cory Mason’s proposed budget for the public library. A previously-passed amendment that had cut the proposed appropriation drew two hours of, at times, angry public reaction, including comments from a 93-year-old woman. "(The library) was a source of information and creation when my parents were struggling through the depression and many people are struggling today," she said. "Throughout my life I have benefited significantly from our Racine Public Library."
Alder Melissa Kaprelian, a former library board member, said some people in the community were churning a false narrative. "I am beyond sad with the manipulation and the politics that have wrapped themselves around the library. It is weaponizing the love of the library by our residents to come here before us and asking us not to make a cut. It is not a cut," she said emphatically.
The controversial $200,000 allocation came from the city's general fund, putting the library in competition with core services and the need to have a healthy reserve account.
Most of the library's funding comes from taxes that are levied by the city and county. While the county library levy has increased slightly, Mayor Mason has elected to keep the city's levy the same. In recent years, Mason has proposed filling a funding gap with money from the general fund.
Kaprelian and others argue that the library board put itself in a tight spot by agreeing with Mayor Mason's request to give a pay and benefits differential to library workers who are city residents.
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