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February 16, 2009

No time to cut back on soup kitchens for the mind, body and soul

Editorial Ocean City Sentinel

Published in the February 5, 2009 issue

With all the comparisons of the national financial crisis to the Great Depression, it is easy to conjure images of crowds of desperate people waiting in long lines at soup kitchens.

When the economy is in the tank, soup kitchens, just like food pantries and emergency assistance, have to expand to nourish the bodies of the people most in need.

It would take the most hard-hearted of bureaucrats to consider cutting back on help for people who can’t afford to feed themselves.

Personal financial crises can provoke spiritual crises. Families look to their religion to help carry them through tough economic times. Not coincidentally, houses of worship are often the organizations behind the soup kitchens.

Imagine churches and synagogues as soup kitchens for the soul.

Of all places, these religious institutions know there is a need to nourish the soul as well as the body. It would be hard to see them stopping people at the door, limiting entry, just as the need for soul support grows.

As it is for the body and soul, there must be nourishment for the mind – the third part of this triptych.

Libraries provide that.

In the best of times and, in the worst of times, libraries are where people turn to enrich their intellects. Increasingly, that is where they must turn when they can’t afford any other options. As statistics show throughout the nation, library usage is soaring across the U.S. Some of that is interest. A lot of that is need.

And as libraries have increased what they offer to the public – computers and internet access, children’s programs, CDs and DVDs, along with their wealth of books and magazines and newspapers – they have become more integral to the well-being of the public.

For those who may scoff at the need for internet access, consider how overwhelmed the unemployment offices have been in this area and how the only easy access to them – and to regular benefits checks – is through the internet. For those who can’t afford a computer or internet access, libraries become the most viable option. For those who don’t believe it, see how easy it is to get a call through to an unemployment office.

As Jim Rettig, president of the American Library Association in Chicago told The Wall Street Journal, “people recognize what a great value the public library is.”

Witness the battle lines drawn in Philadelphia when the mayor proposed closing 11 of the 54 branches of the public library to cut the city’s budget. The prospect of cutting back library funding is as vital in our local communities as it is in big cities such as Philadelphia.

In New Jersey in November, the League of Municipalities proposed changing the state law on how libraries are funded. They receive municipal appropriations equal to a third of a mill of total assessed valuation. The League of Municipalities wants to halve that, cutting municipal appropriations to a sixth of a mill.

We know that states and municipalities are struggling with their budgets, but cutting library funding in half will hurt the most vulnerable people first and hurt so many more who depend on these critical community centers.

We want our state legislators, Sen. Jeff Van Drew and Assemblymen Matt Milam and Nelson Albano, to oppose the League of Municipalities on this notion that libraries should be cut to balance budgets. The league hasn’t gotten a bill introduced on this yet and we hope it does not.

An alternate and much better idea that could save library funding and help municipalities is a law that would exempt the library funding from the municipal budget cap. That would relieve the tension between libraries and elected officials struggling to meet the 4 percent cap who feel forced to look at that fixed funding as a means to meet that end.

There are bills to that effect now in the state Assembly and Senate that would do that, but they are stuck there. We’d like to see our state representatives give them a shove, and give Senate and Assembly leaders Richard Cody and Joe Roberts a friendly push as well. The bills would take the library funding and set it off on its own. Taxpayers would see it on their tax bill just like county residents do when they see library funding in its own category.

This would help in three big ways. Politicians would be spared from having to look hungrily at library funding to balance their budgets. Libraries would be spared from having to cut back when usage is increasing dramatically. And patrons, at their time of greatest need, would be spared from getting locked out of one of the best bargains for their tax dollars.

Posted by tumulty at February 16, 2009 10:40 AM

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