The Warren (Mich.) public library system got a fiscal boost April 9 to keep two underfunded branches operating for six additional months. Mayor Mark Steenbergh appropriated $168,000 from city emergency funds to keep the branches open through January 1, 2002, though they had been expected to close July 1 due to a budget shortfall. The mayor also pushed a proposed August 28 millage that, if approved by voters, would add $4 million to the libraries’ budget, according to the April 10 Detroit News.
Steenbergh also gave Library Director Wlodek Zaryczny notice that he would be fired in the new year if he failed to render the library system solvent “by finding efficiencies or getting voters to pass the millage.” Though Zaryczny has been issued an ultimatum, Steenburgh moved to raise the director’s salary by $264 to $77,692 in the coming fiscal year. The chair of Warren’s library commission has expressed doubts about the mayor’s power to remove the director.
Zaryczny nevertheless praised the mayor’s allocation of emergency funds, saying, “We’re a system in crisis that’s ready for a long-term solution. Now we have breathing room. I am ecstatic about that.”
Posted April 16, 2001.