POTTSTOWN — As the borough council moved on Tuesday to advertise its draft $69 million budget for 2025, it also resolved to try to close another budget gap — the one at the Pottstown Regional Public Library.
As The Mercury reported recently, the library is reducing its time open to the public by eight hours a week this month due to budget constraints caused, in part, by “the ongoing practice of local municipalities Upper Pottsgrove and West Pottsgrove, not meeting their fiscal responsibilities to the library,” according to a letter from the board of directors.
While Lower Pottsgrove Township is meeting the state-recommended contribution of $5 per person, and Pottstown Borough is exceeding it, the other two townships are not. Upper Pottsgrove has not contributed a single dollar in three years even though residents of that township continue to have free access to the resource.
To Pottstown Councilman Andrew Monastra, “That’s not right.”
And he would like the council to look into doing something about it.
“I’d like to see how we can address something that’s wrong. We’re being asked to cover more than we’re supposed to,” Monastra said at the Nov. 12 council meeting. “This has nothing to do with the library, I love the library. This has to do with two townships and I’d like to know who do I talk to?”
“It is a regional library, it should have regional support. Why doesn’t it?” asked Council President Dan Weand.
The library serves as the official library of the Pottstown and Pottsgrove school districts.
Last month, Library director Angela Brown appeared before the Upper Pottsgrove Township commissioners to plead for them to include library funding in their 2025 budget. She said 7 percent of the library’s patrons are Upper Pottsgrove residents.
So far in 2024, she said, township residents have accessed the library 5,583 times. She received no immediate public response from the commissioners.
The Upper Pottsgrove Commissioners did not respond to Brown, nor did they discuss the matter when the $4.4 million budget for 2025 was on the agenda at their Nov. 6 meeting.
The Census estimated Upper Pottsgrove’s population in July at 6,208. Meeting the state recommendation would result in an annual contribution of $31,040.
According to the Census, West Pottsgrove’s 2023 population was 3,798, which would result in an annual contribution of $18,540. Brown said West Pottsgrove usually pays about $10,000 per year and contributes in kind by sending a township crew to cut the grass at the library.
Should both townships be paying their fair share, the library would be receiving $49,580 toward the current $81,000 deficit instead of the mere $10,000 it receives from West Pottsgrove.
“We’re contributing more than our fair share, it’s time to break this inequity,” said Weand.
Mayor Stephanie Henrick suggested putting together an ad-hoc committee to address the issue and Weand suggested that Monastra chair that committee. Monastra said he would like the committee to focus on increasing payments to the library for the 2026 budget year, given that most budgets are too far along to make a change for the 2025 budget year.
