Within a week of the Rahway Public Library announcing the immediate halt of all programming, the library’s Board of Trustees unanimously reinstated funding during an emergency meeting on Friday.

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The library posted on social media Friday that all programming would return by tomorrow. Access to Hoopla, Kanopy, and their mobile hotspot provider was reinstated immediately.

The reinstatement came after a tumultuous week. Posts on social media were flooded with comments and a  Change.org campaign collected nearly 1,350 signatures. The library’s union staff made a statement about the struggles they’ve gone through since 2019.

A  “Fund the Library Rally” outside City Hall on Tuesday brought out more than 60 attendees before the City Council’s 7 p.m. pre-meeting conference. Attendees held signs including phrases such as “Less Concerts, More Books,” “Save Our Library,” and “Nice Little Budget You Got There.”

At the rally, Rahway Rising spoke with Andrew Garcia Phillips, a resident who often speaks at City Council meetings about transparency in city government. He described the funding cut as “entirely avoidable” and that he wasn’t surprised that the funding issue had reached this point.

Phillips explained that he had attended a Rahway Public Library Board of Trustees meeting two years ago to ask when they were going to advocate for more funding, and it took an additional two years for the situation to become dire. ”I don’t think there’s anyone in the administration or City Council that didn’t know that this was coming,” he said.

The community certainly made themselves heard at the City Council pre-meeting conference following the rally. The two-and-a-half-hour-long meeting, which is available on YouTube, was packed with concerned constituents. 

City’s Budget Planning 

Tuesday’s meeting began with a presentation from the City’s chief financial officer, Frank Ruggiero. He explained the difference between the library’s budget and its funding sources.

The primary funding source is Rahway taxpayers. New Jersey law requires the minimum funding for a municipal public library to account for $0.333 on each $1,000 of the equalized value of all assessed property in the City. In 2024, that minimum amount is $1,319,783. 

2021	2022	2023	2024
$974,150	$1,173,000	$1,314,783	$1,319,783

In addition to the minimum funding required by the state, Ruggiero said the city also pays for the library space ($594,000), which is on par with downtown commercial rents, and the health benefits of library staff ($200,000).

In 2023, the city examined the library’s audit report and identified a $600,000 surplus, which is “excessive” in a budget of almost $1.4 million, according to Ruggiero. The administration and the library’s executive director, Ian Sloat, decided that $400,000 of the surplus would be used to offset the budget. Another $200,000 of the surplus would be used in 2023.

During 2024 budget discussions, Ruggiero had communicated to all departments that they should expect the same or a decrease in their budget. Sloat submitted a proposed budget of $1.69 million, a 28% increase over 2023.

According to Ruggiero, the administration proposed three ways to  make up the $140,000 that the city did not fund this year: 

• Using $55,000 of the library’s surplus
• Not hiring three vacant positions that were funded in the director’s budget until next year would account for another $50,000 
• If the assistant director retires, as he was considering, the prorated salary would make up the rest of the difference 

Ruggiero said that Sloat “assumed” City Council would come through with the funding and hadn’t amended his proposed library budget for 2024, leading to an immediate halt to programming.

“This situation is less about funding itself and more about how the library manages our financial resources,” Mayor Ray Giacobbe, Jr. said after the CFO’s presentation.

“The city is dedicated to supporting the library and it is important that we do not use these essential services as leverage to increase departmental budgets,” Giacobbe said. “I acknowledge my responsibility in not being as active as I should have been as a library board member – and that is on me. I want to assure you, the public, that this will change moving forward.”

Public Comments

After the CFO’s statements, the council opened the meeting to public comment from the packed Council Chambers.

Liz Karstadt, a.k.a., “Miss Liz,” the children’s librarian, expressed her support for the executive director following the mayor’s accusations via social media that Sloat is “incompetent.”

Sloat “kept our library open for the past few years despite a consistent lack of funding and runaround regarding our budget,” said Karstadt, who was recognized by the city’s Social Justice Commission as a 2024 Unsung Rahway Rock Star. “If he should leave, how will we ever get a competent and qualified director to take the position?”

Other speakers talked about the importance of the library in the community and in their own lives while others called out City Council members for not questioning items.

Second Ward Councilwoman Karla Timmons was the only council member to comment after the barrage of public speakers. “Not everything that is brought to our attention needs to be public information in the sense of if I have a question about something or my colleagues and how that may be debated prior to coming to meetings. We do have conversations at times amongst each other and question people in different positions,” Timmons said. 

She urged speakers who were passionate about what they talked about to take that same energy and apply it to the library Board of Trustees.

Emergency Board Meeting

Two days after the council meeting, the mayor released a statement on Thursday announcing an emergency Board meeting would be held virtually on Friday. According to attendees who posted in “The Real Voice of Rahway” Facebook group, the Zoom call had more than 200 attendees at its peak.

Several hours after the meeting, the library posted that the programs were reinstated. While all of the changes go into effect Monday, it’s still not clear how the funding will be acquired, whether through cuts identified by the administration or increased funding from the city.

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