Boston City Council to Meet to Review Revised Menino Budget, Wednesday, June 23rd, 9:30 AM

The Boston City Council will review a revised budget sent by the Menino administration to reflect changes in a number of FY11 budget items, including library funding. The meeting will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, June 23rd, at 9:30 AM in the Piemonte Room.

City councillors had made it clear there was no chance they would approve a FY11 budget that supported library closings and layoffs. Earlier this week, in what one legislator described as a flurry of emails and phone calls, the expectation developed that the BPL had backed off from library closings for this coming fiscal year and that the intervening time gained would be used to find a better solution to library funding than closings and layoffs. At the BPL’s latest “special” trustees meeting, however, it turned out that the proposed closings and layoffs would proceed but not until “later this (fiscal) year,” according to Amy Ryan, BPL president, who was unwilling to state a specific time for these closures. City councillors, echoing the frustration of the state reps present at the trustees meeting who had hoped for better news, said they would review the revised budget and planned to work closely with their colleagues at the State House to stabilize the library system.

Tomorrow morning’s city council meeting is is not a hearing public comment, but  an “open meeting” the public is cordially invited to attend.