By LEE-ANNA JOHN
The Free Johnson Public Library, which serves the City of Hackensack along with 67 other New Jersey towns, is facing budget cuts and possible closure.
According to Cathy Folk-Pushee, an adult service librarian, Hackensack has about 44,000 residents. The population of Hackensack is diverse both culturally and economically, “we have some of the county services here in Hackensack too,” said Folk-Pushe, this explain the large population of patrons that JPL has.
Hackensack residents and other patrons began protesting budget cuts late this summer. The Free Johnson Public Library is rumored to be in danger of closing because of the city’s decision to cut the libraries funding. Before long community members began to organize and a petition was in place. The JPL is one of the largest libraries in New Jersey.
“I can remember coming to the library a lot when I was in middle school,” said a Hackensack resident, Jahmar Chance,”the library was my second home.”
Many people are unhappy about the recent budgets cuts. “Fond memories, and a lot of people have them about the children’s department, people come here and they remember ‘awe, I used to live at that library’, we had a budget problem and we cut about 8.5 % is 2014 and we are just little nervous because we can use some of our reserve this year but next year if we cut anymore the board does not want to use anymore of the reserve, it get to a precarious level, then we may see staff reduction, which I do not want to see happen. Everyone love their job and they love serving people”, said Sharon Castanteen, Director of the Johnson Public Library.
“Its going to mean that their are a lot less books, we are hoping it is not going to affect our service. It is going to be really hard keeping up with the services, this has been the busiest year since I stated working here.” – Marilyn Oslon, head of children’s. Marilyn has been working at JPL for 42 years.
During the October 21 council meeting the JPL budget was discussed by the city manager.
“The staff has looked at financial analysis of the City of Hackensack, specifically the Johnson Public Library” said City Manager, David Troast, “the minimum library appropriation is calculated and is actually required under statute when they created libraries.”
In the presentation Troast shows the “equalized assessed value” to run the library. The equalized assessed value is the budget that the city sees fit based on population and needed services. According to Troast, when it comes to budget, JPL
has the third highest budget it the state. JPL is topped by Fairlawn and Paramus. Troast emphasizes the donation portion to the Johnson Public Library.
“We looked at population and then we looked at the library’s budget and the municipal donation, you can see in this category, out of the towns that we looked at, three towns did not give any donation” said Troast.
This is for the public, these are all based on facts. All of the information was taken off of the state website and was compared to other municipal websites. The key here is communication and understanding the budgetary issues and understanding what other communities are spending on libraries Troast stated.
“I can say from my personal experience in the other communities that I have worked at, that the Hackensack Library is a great library and it has been supported by the council over the years and I am sure, it is, I know that one of my goals is to make the next couple of years as far as the budget goes. We are going to do everything that we possibly can to keep the funding at least in a condition where the library can continue to keep their doors open, continue to function. That doesn’t mean that there may be some pain, as in every department there will be changes which the CFO and I and the finance committee are beginning to look a.t The different department budgets are being formulated and once we get the year end numbers, we will know where we stand financially.”
History and Services
There are two section of the Johnson Public Library. According to Marilyn Olson, the head of children’s at JPL, the library has been in Hackensack since 1901 and was opened with donations from senator Johnson.
“The children library was built is 1966, it is very different from the newer potion of the library”- Olsen
“The children’s room offers books, books on CD. We have many programs, we do chess time, arts and game. We do story
hour both in Spanish and English,” said Olsen. During the summer we have similar programs including the summer reader Olson added.
The library offers ESL classes, Pre School Story Hour, Teen Tuesdays, Affordable Care Act Enrollment Assistance, and Citizenship Class among dozens of other sessions.
The Library also has a multitude of different clubs for children and teens. Clubs for children include: iPlay Corner, Mother Goose Story Time, Tech Time, Magic Tree House Book Club, Robotics, Chess Club, Legomania, Video Game Club and Artisan’s Guide. Teens can use online forms to find books book recommendations or go in to the library on Tuesdays, Thursdays or Fridays to speak with the JPL’s teen librarian about books they may enjoy.
The second part of the library if the youth and adult section. This session of the library has new computers and magazines open for patrons to use. The library also has a Kindle program that library goes can use. “They are able to take to Kindle home with them,” said Folk-Pushee.
They library also has computers that member can access with their library cards. There are over fourteen computers in the library. In addition to computers and the library also
“We try to provide for the public so that if you do not have discretionary money and you want to fax, you want to scan, you want to use a computer, you want to use the internet, you want to read to your hearts content, you want to learn something for free, we are here,” Castanteen stated.
“We also offer ESL classes for language learners.”-Folk-Pushee
Funding
“We had about twenty-five hundred petitions signed, about 9 hundred online and about sixteen hundred paper ones that we sent over to the council, and that does not count about six hundred petitions signed by students. The voice has been heard,it has been stated and we are just hoping that they know how much support there is,” said Castanteen.
Even though many have signed the petition to increase the libraries funding any change in budget will not come until next year.
I am hoping that we are going to be part of the educational and culture of the city always and seen that way”- Director Castanteen.
This story was covered well, its a good community story, public libraries always lead to good reporting people like to talk about changes especially when it has been a huge part of the community for so many years. Its a sensitive issue with the budget and possible loss of the library.I like the map and all the multimedia with the story.