As Schlow Centre Region Library faces a state-funding cut this year, several State College Borough Council members indicated a willingness Monday to use local funds to make up the difference.
‘We should minimize cuts in the levels of service,’ council member Peter Morris said at the group’s Monday meeting. If Centre Region municipalities are able to fill the gap left by the state-funding reduction, he said, they ought to do so.
Council member Tom Daubert said he agreed.
‘If anything, we need to add money for the library,’ Daubert said. He said the acquisition of new materials ‘is the last thing (the library) should be cutting.’
The library is funded largely through a combination of state funds and money from the Centre Region municipal governments, though the state-provided money amounts to less than half the local contribution, council member Don Hahn said.
Borough Manager Tom Fountaine said the library board has not sought an increase in funding from municipalities this year. Through its website, is running an active fundraising campaign that targets individual users.
StateCollege.com will soon post more details in this developing story.
In other news at Monday’s council meeting, members received an update on the borough’s environmental efforts. A pilot program focused on food-waste recycling has already collected more than 81,000 pounds of waste, largely in the Greentree neighborhood, and avoided some $3,000 in refuse tipping fees in the process, Alan Sam said. He is the borough’s environmental coordinator.
He said the borough is trying to test the recycling program in the downtown area next. The effort is the first of its kind in this part of the U.S.
In addition Monday, council members voted 6-0 to refer to the Planning Commission a zoning request from Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church. (Only council member Jim Rosenberger was absent.)
The church wants the borough to revise its zoning ordinance so that it — and other churches — can build outdoor columbaria on church grounds. A columbarium houses cremated remains, or cremains.
Earlier coverage: State College Church Seeks Zoning Change
