Library Proposes 1.4% Budget Increase

Residents will have a say over the direction of the Mastics Moriches Shirley Community Library as they decide on an annual budget and select a library trustee during a districtwide vote April 4.

The board of trustees have proposed a $10,613,000 spending plan which would carry a 1.4 percent library tax hike if approved by the voters. The plan represents a $148,499 increase over last’s year’s budget and includes $778,876 in capital funds which were approved in a 2019 referendum, according to Library Director Kerri Rosalia.

In effect, voters are being asked to decide only on the budget increase since spending would default to the previous year’s level if not approved, Rosalia pointed out. Last year, voters rejected the library plan and spending reverted back to the previous year’s budget. Though they have the option, the trustees decided not to resubmit a plan to the community for a revote and kept spending flat.

This year’s proposed spending increase was due in part to contractual obligations, Rosalia explained, along with increased custodial and security staffing for the new branches, and higher operating costs caused by inflation. The average homeowner pays about $680 per year for library services, according to the director.

Details of the spending plan will be available on the library’s website with an informational meeting scheduled for March 27 at the Mastic Recreation Center on Herkimer Street, also the location of the budget vote, starting at 7 pm.

Since 2017, the library has only increased its operating budget once, Trustee President Joseph Maiorana noted, a four percent hike in 2021 as a major expansion of library facilities came off the drawing board. With $22.7 million approved in the 2019 referendum and $4 million in reserve funds, the library embarked on the creation of satellite facilities in Moriches and Mastic Beach and a complete rebuild of its main branch in Shirley.

The Shirley renovation has experienced a number of setbacks since work started last year, Rosalia reported, including structural issues discovered during the early stages of the project. When contractors gutted the 45,000-square-foot building they found that the existing steel beams, elevator shafts, and exterior walls needed reinforcement. Inflation and supply chain issues in the wake of the COVID pandemic also weighed on the reconstruction causing material and labor costs to spike, the director said.

“We are staying below the state tax cap and are committed to not going back to the voters for any additional capital spending,” Maiorana said in announcing the budget plan. He said the board expects the overruns to be covered by additional monies from the library’s reserve, grants and savings from a “value engineering” review by the construction team. The library is also counting on $169,000 from Suffolk County for Innovative and Alternative Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems (I/A OWTS) at all three sites and $800,000 from the state, with additional requests for grants pending.

“They are disturbingly late to be bringing out a budget now, especially in light of the construction issues,” said Ray Keenan, a director of the Mastic Park Civic Association and previous board of trustees candidate. “This is another example of the poor public relations exhibited by the library board. They’ve been putting the excess from the budget into the reserve to cover the capital costs, rather than reducing taxes on the public. If this is a backdoor way to pay for the construction costs, then it should not happen.”

In addition to voting on an annual budget, residents will be asked to cast ballots for a library trustee. Current five-year board member Joseph Furnari is being challenged by Shirley resident Ken Olivo, a New York Office of Mental Health retiree who’s been active in various community organizations. Five trustees serve as an executive board overseeing library operations, projects, staffing, and expenditures.

Furnari, 37, of Shirley operates a commercial cleaning business and is on the staff of Senator Dean Murray. A William Floyd graduate, he earned an Associate Degree in Graphic Art from Briarcliff College. He’s married with three children. “My main focus is to support and promote all of the amazing services our community library has to offer,” Furnari said. “I work to make sure everyone has the opportunity to take advantage of our services,” the trustee said, noting that the increase in usage at the Mastic Beach satellite has been mostly parents with children. “These are people who have never used the library before and weren’t aware of our services.” Regarding the main library renovation, Furnari commented: “We know what direction we’re going with the structural issues; they’re being taken care and everything is going smoothly. We are all very excited that our building project is moving forward.”

Furnari has been involved with the All Faith Soccer League with his daughter and was a board member with the Mastic and Shirley Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of LeTip International’s Suffolk Shore Chapter, a networking organization that meets weekly. He is a Brookhaven Republican Party committeeman and member of the Southeastern Brookhaven GOP Club who screened for the town’s Sixth Council District with a goal of “preserving our big, yet small town feel.”

A past trustee of the Village of Mastic Beach, Olivo, 65, has been on the executive board of the Long Island Federation of Labor and currently serves on the boards of Colonial Youth and Family Services, Mastic Beach Chamber of Commerce, South Bay Civic, and the James V. Kavanaugh Columbian Club where he is a Director Emeritus. “There’s very little communication between the board members and the community,” Olivo said in pledging to use his involvement in local organizations as a conduit for library information. “I will go out and fill people in about what’s going on, especially with the seniors and retirees who don’t have representation on the board. There will be more of a personal touch between the library board and the residents,” the candidate said, noting that he’s been involved with the library since it first started in a trailer in front of the high school in 1978. He is a founding board member of the library’s Friends of the Arts and started a 501c3 organization known as the Friends of the Mastics Moriches Shirley Community Library to raise funds for the library.

Trustee candidates Joe Funari

Trustee candidates Ken Olivo

First settling in the community in the early ’70s, Olivo helped organize the Christmas parade for 36 years and, working with the Arthur Clune American Legion Post, was an organizer of the Bi-Centennial Parade and the three days of festivities that followed to celebrate America’s 200th birthday. Olivo said he’s also worked on the community’s changeover from well water to the Suffolk Water Authority and has been active with the Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary, and St. Jude’s Church, as well as coaching Yuma Little League Baseball for 15 years and assisting with the Tri-Hamlet Community Day. He is married with a daughter and a son who has passed away.

As a former Mastic Beach Village building commissioner, Olivo says he has construction management experience and would be an asset as the library progresses on its renovation projects. “I’ll be very hands-on,” he promised.