Your Wantagh Library Tax at Work

I have been advised by the library’s director that the cost of the library budget vote and uncontested trustee election held in April 2014 was $5,445.49.  Exclusive of 17 absentee ballots this amounted to $36.55 per vote cast.  Needless to say this is nothing short of outrageous.  Moreover, the budget, which was passed by a whopping 35 votes, sought an increase of $45,500 from the prior year’s budget, an amount which could have easily been met by tapping the library’s excess fund balances or by merely adopting the prior year’s budget which generated $178,950 in excess funds.  In other words the library spent 12% of its budget increase in order to hold a budget vote which I believe could have been avoided and an uncontested election.  To me this is the functional equivalent of my borrowing money which I did not need at 12% interest to do something I may not need to have done.  In business, we have a word to describe this, mismanagement.