Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Nutting was "forward-thinking"

GHS
Posted Mar 24, 2009 @ 01:08 AM

FRANKLIN —

Knowing that he's going to slash the library's budget by "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to preserve essential services, Town Administrator Jeffrey D. Nutting said he is preparing to share Library Director Felicia Oti with Medway.

Nutting cannot say yet precisely how the budget reduction will impact library hours, services or employees, but it will be enough to necessitate combining resources, he said.

For now, Nutting and Medway officials are only discussing sharing Oti's services, splitting her hours between the two towns, he said.

Oti works a total of 35 hours per week in Franklin. If the sharing agreement goes forward, she will spend about 14 of those 35 hours in Medway. Oti's annual salary is about $80,000. Medway would cover about $32,000 of her salary, explained Medway Board of Library Trustees Chairwoman Wendy Rowe.

If Medway employs a part-time director (via Franklin or on their own), they would meet state certification requirements and receive their certification, Nutting said.

"Franklin's fate, with or without sharing the director's time, will be determined by our application for a waiver to the Mass. Library Commission," Nutting said. He said the only way Franklin can meet the Massachusetts Library Commission standard for certification would be to not cut library hours and increase the budget next year.

The waiver request is necessary, he said, because Franklin will not increase the library's budget, and the Franklin library will not be open the minimum 63 hours per week.

Read the full article about the proposed combination of Franklin and Medway's libraries in the Milford Daily News here


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