Two years’ worth of intense cost-cutting measures hung over the Niles-Maine District Library’s budgeting process as trustees workshopped and tentatively approved a $7.8 million spending plan for the next year.
Of the total sum, $6.6 million will go toward operations, trustees and library staff said.
“We’ve got two years of lower levies that we’re going to have to contend with and we’re going to have to figure out how to deal with those numbers,” Trustee Umair Qadeer said after he suggested a series of cuts to the library staff’s original proposal.
The previous library board slashed the institution’s tax levy to $5 million, a 15% reduction from $5.89 million it had levied in 2021.
The drop in the levy was the centerpiece of a battery of changes the preceding board implemented. That board also deferred maintenance on the building’s roof, eliminated more routine cleaning…
