The version of the anonymous letter received by American Libraries states it “was prepared by a group of library workers who really love their jobs, their co-workers’ jobs, and the Providence Public Library.” The writers pointed out that salaries for the top five library administrators have increased by roughly 12% annually since 1998, according to public IRS filings, and singled out Library Director Dale Thompson’s FY 2002 salary of $136,957: “PPL keeps repeating that we must now live within our means, but how is having a Director who makes more than the Mayor or the Governor living within our means?”
Joel Stark, chairman of PPL’s board of trustees, said in the June 24 Journal that some salary increases were part of a three-year upgrade set in place after a consultant in 2000 “showed that all the executive staff was paid below the market rate.”
Thompson told the Journal that the board had considered other remedies, such as a four-day work week, but that layoffs appeared to be the only solution. “Such a large percentage of our budget, over 70%, is personnel, and another 10 to 12% is library materials,” she said. “So when reductions have to be made, there’s really no place else to go.”
Somewhat belatedly on July 1, PPL officials offered voluntary severance packages to certain categories of employees, the Journal reported July 2. “We’re doing this because a number of staff people have asked for this opportunity,” Thompson explained. She added that eligible staff will have until July 9 to decide whether to accept the option, which includes “added benefits” not available to those who are involuntarily laid off.
The letter writers are also concerned about administrators’ plans to restructure the Central Library into a popular-title collection that “will be devastating to the quality of service and to the integrity of the collection.”
A recently formed group calling itself the Friends of the Fox Point Library circulated a petition in late June that asks the PPL administration “to withdraw their current plans for restructuring the library system, and hold a public meeting at which they can explain their rationale and take questions and comments from the audience.” The July 1 Journal noted that about 200 people had signed the petition so far.
Posted July 2, 2004.