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Budget hearings for public library held today at JKPL
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Posted on Aug 10 2011
Joeten-Kiyu Public Library executive director John Oliver Gonzales urged library patrons and supporters to attend the budget hearings for the state library and the CNMI Library Council for fiscal year 2012 today.
The hearing, to be led by the Senate Fiscal Affairs and House Ways & Means committees, will be done at the library in Susupe at 9am.
Gonzales said the office of Sen. Jovita Taimanao confirmed the change of venue for the hearing from its previous venue on Capital Hill.
Gonzales said the public’s presence during the hearing will help lobby and justify the library’s request for exemption from reduced hours and restore their normal operating hours.
“What we’re asking for is meager basic local funds for the 80-hour salary of our staff,” he told Saipan Tribune. “The local government does not have to worry about our other needs because we get funding for those through federal grants.”
According to Gonzales, JKPL is the “only comprehensively equipped library and service-oriented facility that must remain open and operate as an educational institution.”
The public library, Gonzales said, provides free, valuable, and comprehensive informational, educational, and technology literacy services for the entire population.
Gonzales added that restoring the library’s normal work hours will enable it to comply with the maintenance-of-effort requirement of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which provides funding to state libraries and library agencies, including JKPL.
He said that, as an IMLS grantee, the library is required to operate and demonstrate in good faith its local contribution to leveraging and matching these federal funds for a “vulnerable and resource challenged island community and population” such as the CNMI.
