Library to have reserve fund without taxation
To the editor:
Dear Ms Chappina: Thank you for your kind words and for not taking umbridge at me for my library letter of April 22.
It is ironic that you mention I “should have made a presence when all of this was in the planning stage.” Perhaps you were not here in 2012 when three of us ran for the library board in its first-ever election. Previously, library board members were appointed by library board members. We thought we had comprehensively outlined the problems with the library finances, but we were all soundly trounced.
You are right, it is time to let it go but a statement that 28,900 persons passed through the doors in a month could not fail to get my investigative juices flowing.
But wait! Take a look at the library audit dated Sept. 30, 2014. The library shows a huge fund (i.e. cash doing nothing) of $2,379,933 made up of $342,000 for Catastrophe, $155,000 for Equipment and Building Replacement, $519,00 for Total Solar? and $1,363,933 Unassigned (whatever that means). This is massive over taxing. It takes about $900,000 per year to run the library, so please library collect no taxes from us for the next two years, and you will still have a reserve fund.
Peter Reid
Fort Myers Beach