For the third time since 2020, the Troy Public Library is asking taxpayers for a more than 10 percent budget increase. Executive Director Tim Furgal says the 30 percent increase comes after years of disinvestment, despite the implementation of several levies of more than 10 percent in recent years.
“Where we're at with our current budget, it's a difficult spot,” Furgal said. “It's not enough to maintain two buildings. It's barely enough to maintain one building, let alone two historic buildings, one from 1820, one from 1897 I think everybody has seen what a lack of investment in the buildings and facilities looks like.”
For a house assessed at $150,00, officials say homeowners can expect to pay $170.07 in library taxes. The same household would have paid $132.19 in 2025.
In July, due to a lack of staff and adequate air conditioning, the library’s main branch downtown was open only six days for the entire month.
The nearly 200-year-old library system serves the greater city of Troy and neighboring municipalities. The main location recently underwent a roof renovation and the Lansingburgh branch is being renovated after severe water damage in 2023.
If the budget fails, the library won’t be able to afford to staff the Lansingburgh location. That branch already shares employees with the main location. Furgal says a consolidation would then take place.
“It provides so much support to the school district up there, the communities, the seniors, the kids,” Furgal said. “Everybody's always talking about how there's not enough activities for kids in Troy, and the library is the antidote to that, but can't help anyone if we're not open, right? So that's part of the pressure that we're facing this year.”
Lansingburgh Branch Manager Laurie Dreyer says the space provides a place for people to form community in a part of the city that has historically been underinvested in and uses public resources. She says a consolidation would hurt residents of North Troy.
“You can go and you can use a room. You can at no cost, you know. You can get free materials, of course, from the library. There's Wi Fi, there's computers, there's really, there's, there's not really any other places in Lansingburgh,” Dreyer said. “I’m thinking out it, there’s nothing else in Lansingburgh.”
The increased funding would only support the hiring of one administrative employee, a public information officer. Furgal says the branches need to improve their visibility online in a digital age.
“The hope is that this will be the last year that we have to focus on adjusting those salaries, and then hopefully next year and the following year we can work on adding more staff members,” Furgal said.
Last year’s budget totaled more than $1.84 million, a 15.2 percent increase year-over-year.
Kayleigh Hartnett is the Head of Circulation. She says the department is in the process of hiring several part time employees, but it won’t be enough to keep operations running smoothly.
“We're what keeps the books moving through the public back into the library, and keeping that cycle going. We can't exactly be there to do that, and it's really an unfortunate circumstance, because we want to be there for the community, and we want to make sure that they have all the access to all the resources that we can offer, that we can offer in the future, that they're looking for to help better our community together,” Hartnett said.
The library has also applied for several state grants to rehabilitate the two historical buildings that include glass floors, grand staircases, and delicate windows.
Budget negotiations come at a time when the library board is negotiating a union contract. In a December vote, the library’s Board of Trustees voluntarily recognized unionized staff at both its main location in downtown Troy and the Lansingburgh branch. Henry Cooley is an employee on the union bargaining committee.
“Stuff that we're talking about, there is details on emergency closures, staff minimums and like a greater participation in the drafting of library policies and then our non-economics, we presented at our last bargaining session, which was on July 31 and we've yet to hear back to we have yet to hear their Library's rebuttals on the numbers that we gave them, but hopefully that'll come by the end of the month.”
Furgal says following salary surveys, employees will see a nine percent pay increase after negotiations are settled.
“We're really trying to make the library more a competitive place to work, a more desirable place to work, so we'll be getting our newly unionized staff a 9% pay increase to bring them up to comparable levels of some other libraries around the area,” Furgal said.
Several public information sessions will be held in the coming weeks. Meetings will be held at the Lansingburgh Boys and Girls Club on August 21, the main library on September 3 and the Lansingburgh branch on September 4. The final vote on the 2026 budget is slated for Tuesday, September 16.
