Library Director’s verbal statement to Board of Selectmen 

on PJL hours change/staffing: 

A.Meyers 7/28/2025

I am here today, as requested, to present to the public regarding the April 2025 reduction of hours at the Philbrick-James Library. 

According to the NH Fiscal Policy Institute's recent blog post, the town of Deerfield has experienced a population growth of 2.5% between 2020-2024. In Deerfield, since 2022, the number of annual library visitors has increased by 30.5 %. Regarding library funding, as it currently stands, town impact fees do not include the library, and since we have not been able to pass an operating budget since 2017, the library has operated on a default budget for eight years.

During this eight-year period, we were grateful to be able to expand our services for this community by adding a full-time children’s librarian to the library staff. This happened in 2020 by warrant article. The children’s librarian position has made a significant difference to our early literacy programming and has increased our building use by families and children–thank you!

In 2022, the library’s operating hours totaled 38 hours per week. Since then we have added 3 hours to better serve citizens–adding early morning hours for senior fitness fans and to accommodate our youngest children by offering an earlier storytime, and extending Saturday hours because we were often closing as patrons were arriving. So, for the past three years, we have been open to the public 41 hours a week. We are staffed by 3 full time equivalents (2 full time employees, and two part time 20 hours-a-week positions). 

All library employees have received the cost of living adjustments (COLAs) voted in by the town, but library wages have not been adjusted in any other way. The conversations regarding library staff compensation are happening at the Library Board meetings because, as an organizational leader, I would be remiss not to bring this topic to the Board’s attention. The Board of Trustees and I have watched with interest the discussion over the wages survey and the possibility of creating steps for town employees, and we have continued to do our best to maintain our dedicated library staff. 

This past March, the operating budget did not pass and a town department head meeting was held regarding the default budget restrictions. After reviewing our building use statistics, programming calendar, and speaking with library staff, I recommended to the Library Board of Trustees that we save approximately $5,000-7,000 in staff and operating costs by cutting our 10-2 Friday open hours, on the one day we did not have regularly scheduled programming. The Board agreed with my recommendation, and this brought our current open hours to 37 per week, down 1 hour from 2022 levels. Staff is our largest budget expense, and with this change, we are currently 59% spent at the end of this month, month 7. 

We then shifted those four Friday part time hours earlier into the week to 1) help us maintain adequate staffing levels during lunch periods, storytimes, outreach programs, and staff paid time off, and 2) to further reduce the number of summer assistant hours needed during the 9 weeks of our summer reading program. For the past three years, these seasonal hours have been included in every proposed budget, but due to the non-passage of proposed budgets, they currently are paid from the new books and materials line. This inhibits collection development– our children’s non-fiction books could greatly benefit from those dollars in a bottom line budget. 

Full time salaried employees continue to show dedication to the community, library, and profession, with evening meetings and hours. I am often asked by well-wishers about taking on more volunteers at the library. Volunteers do supplement our offerings, but I must continue to push back against the expectation that library work can or should be done by volunteers, as it violates best practices for libraries, patron privacy, and employment law. 

It was stated in our April announcement regarding this decision that it is our expectation to review our budget expenditures, staffing levels, and open hours during the upcoming budget development process. If there are further questions, we invite the public to attend Library Board  meetings, join the Friends of the Library, and connect with ongoing efforts to form a library foundation. Library staff appreciate your support, and we look forward to new community engagement as we work together to improve our facilities, programs and services. 

If you have further questions for me, as the Board of Selectmen, I am happy to answer them as best I can.