After months of threats and intense debate between administrators and trustees of the Providence Public Library and city officials, an agreement has been brokered to allow the library to maintain its current level of services through July 2007 while the two sides negotiate a longer-term contract.
The library's governance and financial practices have come under heavy scrutiny in the past year, as it has suffered labor problems and warned residents it would need to cut back services and close up to six branches to avoid heavy losses. The library has nine branches in total, according to its Web site. These problems, among others, caused groups of concerned citizens and city officials to call for more public representation on the library's board of trustees.
Despite its name, the library is a private, not-for-profit corporation. It receives approximately $3 million annually from the city - nearly 40 percent of its funding - but only one person on the library's 33-member board is currently selected by a public official.
While both sides told The Herald in March they expected to reach an agreement allowing more public representation on the board, those negotiations apparently broke down in late spring. Ward 1 City Councilman David Segal, Ward 9 City Councilman Miguel Luna and Ward 2 City Councilwoman Rita Williams had been threatening to introduce an ordinance that would have forced public appointees onto the library board by allowing Mayor David Cicilline '83 and the council to each appoint four trustees.
"We decided to force the issue because the (library) management wasn't acting in good faith," Segal said, referring to the council's decision to move the ordinance out of committee in May. "That got the library administration all jazzed up and had them engage in a new round of negotiations."
Funding for the library has been a contentious issue, as library administrators have said in recent months they cannot maintain the existing level of services with its current resources. PPL administrators also told city officials that without extra money, they would have to start closing branches in order to maintain a balanced budget. But with acrimonious governance discussions and lingering bad will over past communications and labor issues, members of the City Council have been hesitant to increase financial support for the library.
To break the impasse, Cicilline appointed Neil Steinberg '75, Brown's vice president for development, as his special fiscal adviser on the issue, asking him to personally review the situation and the library's financial resources and make recommendations on how to rectify problems. Steinberg is also director of the University's Campaign for Academic Enrichment and a former chairman and CEO of Fleet Bank in Rhode Island.
Steinberg's 23-page report offers sharp criticism of the library's track record for communicating with city officials and the public about its initiatives. "Based on my assessment of the current situation and recent history, library leadership has apparently not managed to communicate clearly with the City Council and the community. Respect and full disclosure do not seem to be a full priority," Steinberg wrote in the report.
However, Steinberg acknowledged that the library's claims that it would need additional funding are accurate. According to the report, increased costs - especially for energy and pension payments - would leave the library with a deficit of nearly $900,000 in the next fiscal year.
Steinberg's report recommended the PPL tap $250,000 of its investment assets, temporarily avoid raising its pension payouts by $240,000 and hold off on increasing funding for capital repairs. With an additional $250,000 of city funding above the current $3 million level, the PPL would then be able to maintain a balanced budget for the next year without closing branches or decreasing services.
On July 19, the PPL board of trustees approved the financial recommendations in Steinberg's report, and Segal said the City Council would provide extra funding in accordance with those recommendations.
The report also criticizes the PPL for overestimating its ability to successfully complete a $30 million capital campaign that began in 2004. "At this time, fundraising expenses seem to be inordinately high compared to dollars actually raised," Steinberg wrote.
"The Steinberg report suggests that perhaps library administrators didn't quite understand finances as well as they might have," said Patricia Raub, founder of the Library Reform Group, which has organized rallies and criticized the PPL's governance in the past. Raub is a professor of American studies at Providence College.
In reference to governance issues, the report recommends that the public not be specifically represented on the board of trustees, as was originally demanded by activists and city leaders. Instead, it suggests establishing a "representative municipal working group ... separate from current PPL leadership" that would evaluate the library and negotiate a longer-term agreement on what services it should provide in exchange for public funding.
"Most important here is to improve the working relationship based on transparency, communication, trust and respect. These were various groups that over a long period of time had grown to not be able to have a reasonable dialogue," Steinberg told The Herald.
Steinberg said his recommendations only provide "a short-term, interim solution" to be put in place while the proposed group negotiates a long-term agreement.
According to several sources, the PPL has been funded by the city for over a century without a formal contract. Steinberg, Segal, library patrons seeking reform and PPL administrators have all agreed that formalizing an agreement will go a long way toward ameliorating the tension among the various parties.
"We're optimistic," said Tonia Mason, director of marketing at the library. "The mayor has taken the lead on this, he's put some strong people (in the working group), and, quite frankly, they have to iron out what we're trying to do. We all recognize we have to do something."
Public representation remains an issueWhile all seem to have high expectations for the mayor's working group, some have voiced concern that its meetings won't be open to the public. "It's really a business relationship between the city and the library board of trustees," Cicilline said in an Aug. 11 article in the Providence Journal.
"They don't see this as a situation where they are looking for public input. ... Perhaps the (mayor's working group) would feel freer to express their opinions on what they think the best solution is if they don't have people breathing down their necks. From our perspective, though, it would be better to have the public involved," Raub said.
"I'd like to see people who are actually patrons of the library providing input, and I'm not too sure the members of this committee are patrons of the library," Raub added. "I personally think the public is the largest donor to the library, and they have a right to be at these meetings."
Segal said he believes the various library reform groups "should be represented," adding, "They've been absolutely critical over the last several years, and I think they should definitely have a seat at the table."
