As we are wrapping up our coverage of 2023, one cannot help but think forward to the New Year and what lies beyond. There are a number of threads left from 2023 that will see continued work or possibly resolution as 2024 becomes the present instead of the future.

The C.H. Booth Library began work on its budget and presented it at the Board of Trustees meeting in December. During budget season last year, the library not only saw no increase to its budget but it was also cut by $100,000, with Legislative Council members pushing the library to spend down what they considered to be a large fund balance.

Having tightened its belt, the library is hoping for a substantial increase in the new year since it covered last year’s cuts with its fund balance, and is facing a spending cliff without an increase in its budget from the town.

Members also expressed worry that if its line item for library director is not increased to be more competitive, the library may have a difficult time replacing its recently departed director, Doug Lord, who was with the library for five years.

According to the minutes of the trustee’s meeting, the library’s draft budget includes a total expenditure increase of $55,919 (3.3 percent), and a requested increase in the town grant of $178,507.

Officials asserted that the request would be necessary to maintain the library’s current level of service.

The Bee sees the C.H. Booth Library as an important pillar of the community, and hopes that this year town officials will consider assisting the library in retaining its current level of service, if not with the full requested increase, then at bare minimum a return to the 2022-23 budget level.

The library’s ask will go before First Selectman Jeff Capeci for preliminary review. The town usually begins the public part of its budget review in January, with the Board of Selectmen seeing a proposed budget in January. It then winds its way through the Board of Finance and the Legislative Council, where line items can be changed and possibly cut. It generally faces voters in late April.