RANDOLPH — The Selectboard must decide on a Kimball Library budget proposal for voters to consider for the third time this year, and a discussion is expected when it meets Thursday.
“At this point, anything is possible and all bets are off. I would hate to see it go for a fourth vote,” Kimball Library Director Amy Grasmick said Monday by phone.
Back in January, the Kimball Library Board of Trustees proposed a $529,000 budget for fiscal year 2027 — which started July 1. It needed $440,000 from taxes, a 22% overall increase from the current fiscal year, mainly for pay raises.
On Jan. 29, the Selectboard cut it back to an 8% increase, and $458,000 total, for voters to consider in March.
However, Grasmick found calculation errors that the Selectboard could not resolve before Town Meeting Day in March, so the library trustees asked voters to reject the library budget — and they did, 507-451.
The trustees then asked the Selectboard to reconsider the original $529,000 budget proposal. The Selectboard countered with a $491,000 total, with $402,000 coming from taxes. In a special budget vote June 30, voters again rejected the budget, 471-453 — one day before the new budget was supposed to kick in.
“Since two budget votes failed, please put the budget crafted by the Library Trustees before the voters,” Grasmick and Trustee Karen Lowry Reed wrote to the Selectboard in an agenda item request for Thursday’s meeting.
Kimball Library has remained open as normal during this first week of July, Grasmick said.
Reached Tuesday by phone, interim town manager Tom Yennerell specified that the library is currently operating based on last year’s budget, funded by previous tax payments.
Grasmick hopes the Selectboard can act with speed, because there’s time pressure with tax collection in the fall. She doesn’t recall a budget revote in her nearly 25 years at Kimball Library.
The Randolph Selectboard is scheduled to convene Thursday, July 9 at 5:30 p.m. in the Randolph Town Offices, 7 Summer St.
