Link to July 9 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, "Milwaukee makes progress on reducing sanctions on library. State agrees to arguments about pension contributions, block grant money".
Excerpt: Library Director Paula Kiely urged the DPI to reconsider, but Tony Evers, state superintendent of public instruction, and Assistant Superintendent Richard Grobschmidt said the law didn't permit waivers.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Ald. Ashanti Hamilton, president of the city's Library Board, then took up the issue, restating Kiely's previous arguments in their own letter to Evers on June 25.
Many of the cuts throughout the 2010 city budget resulted from a required $49 million contribution to the city pension fund, after years of little or no employer contribution. Barrett and Hamilton argued the state's calculation of library spending should include the $748,608 that the city contributed toward library employee pensions.
The city also allocated $208,000 in federal community development block grant funds to the library. Barrett and Hamilton said that money also should count for the state's purposes because the city could have spent those funds on other programs.
Evers agreed with both arguments in a June 30 letter to Barrett and Hamilton. By the city's calculation, those two items brought city library support to 99.6% of the state target.
Related article:
Milwaukee Public Library and the maintenance of effort requirement. (6/28/2010)
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