Link to November 18 Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article, "Divided council narrowly approves library funding. Aldermen restore $15,000 in earlier cuts".
Excerpt: After more than an hour of debate - and with Mayor Jeff Speaker stepping in to cast a tie-breaking vote - the Common Council decided Tuesday not to cut the Brookfield Public Library's proposed budget for materials in 2010.
Speaker cast the vote to restore $15,000 to the library's operating budget after the Finance Committee in October voted to reduce the money spent on books, periodicals and other materials and keep the library's material expenditures at 2009 levels.
The debate over library funding was the main focus of the Common Council's discussions of the 2010 budget. The amended budget - with the $15,000 restored - was approved unanimously.
According to Wisconsin public library law, "the library board shall have exclusive control of the expenditures of all moneys collected, donated, or appropriated for the library fund". i.e., applied to the library's various accounts. In other words, it would be the Brookfield Public Library Board's call as to how a cut of $15,000 would be applied. (At least that's how I was taught to interpret this "power and duty" -- and you can tell me if I'm wrong, John.) But the reality, of course, is that it's unlikely there's any wiggle room in other line items of a library's budget. That certainly was, and I'm sure still it, the case at Middleton.
I suspect, though, there are some venues where the "exclusive control" argument is NOT well-received, and, for the sake of keeping peace in the family, is not brought forward.
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