Above: Plans for a potential library expansion/renovation are on hold since the state won’t provide matching funds. (image from grant application materials)
These days, there is a lot of public focus on the big school building project headed to a Special Town Meeting this spring. Some residents may have missed or forgotten that last spring voters approved funding for planning another Town building project.
Last month, Town officials learned that the state grant necessary to design a Southborough Library addition/renovation didn’t come through. Without that support, plans are on hold for a Library building project that was estimated would cost over $8M when it eventually reached the construction phase.
The Mass Board of Library Commissioners’ (MBLC) encouraged the library to reapply for the next round. But that isn’t expected to open up until 2027.1
In a recent meeting of the Library’s Board of Trustees, members worried that reapplying would be a waste of energy. Library Director Ryan Donovan discussed with them what steps the Library should take in the near and long term.
Here is an overview of the situation, along with highlights from their meeting and my conversations with Donovan.
Grant Application and Outcome
Last spring, Southborough Town Meeting voters approved spending/borrowing up to $150K on the design phase of a library building construction/renovation project. Based on an already completed Feasibility Study, voters were assured that the only project that would make sense for the Town to pursue was an expansion/renovation — not an entirely new building.
(The building’s historic facade facing Common Street is under a Preservation Restriction. And the deed on the land restricts its use to a Library. That means razing or repurposing the building aren’t options.)
Town Meeting’s funding approval could only be used if MBLC’s Mass Public Library Construction Program (MPLCP) grant came through. That grant would have covered 50% of “eligible costs”, capped at $100K.
Twenty two libraries applied for the MPLCP funding. Southborough was one of only seven that didn’t receive an award.2
MBLC used an independent review panel for the award recommendations. The panel didn’t pass on details as to why specific applicants were chosen over others. But Donovan’s MBLC contact did confirm that data provided to the panel included a factor the Town’s scored low on.
On a scale of 0 – 20, our town only received 2.44 for “municipal needs”.
A 2023 email from MBLC described the factor as “tabulated from the DOR’s equalized valuations and income per capita for each municipality”. Donovan said that he believes the libraries that received grants had need factors of around 11-16.
Donovan said he asked MBLC for constructive feedback on the application, to help prepare for a future round. He was told that the application was perceived favorably by the MBLC overall. But there was another potential issue flagged — the Town’s apparent satisfaction with the current library.
Southborough’s application included survey results showing only about 12% of the 325 respondents were dissatisfied with the current building. (Even on the Library’s Building Expansion page, it quotes support from patrons urging for more space that start their comments by assuring they “love” the library.)
In their January 21st meeting, Trustee Vice Chair Jane Davis opined that people are inclined to like the library since it is the only meeting place/Town center Southborough has.
In my conversation with Donovan, he also noted that some of the successful applicants forecast large population growth. Southborough’s population projections are stagnant.
Donovan said he did explain in the application that the size of the library didn’t expand proportionally to serve the community when development and population previously surged.
What’s next for handling space issues?
The building project was pursued based on the Trustees’ determination that the library needs more space for storage, staff functions, programming, and housing its collection.
In the near term, Donovan suggested conducting a space assessment. (He recommended using a consultant, but was willing to do the work himself if the board preferred.) The results would help them decide how to “best maximize” the space they have. And he hoped it would strengthen a future application if they reapply for the next grant round.
Trustees expressed skepticism about the odds of future success. They opined that Southborough will never qualify for funding based on the community’s average wealth.
[Note: While I don’t have the income and valuation figures from DOR, it’s worth highlighting that the Library’s Building Project application showed 73.5% of the population income as $100K or greater, with over 46.5% making more than $200K.3 And, in December, a Town budget update referred to an average residential single family home value of over $997K.]
Trustee Janet Maney recalled past work she had done with teachers to pursue literacy grants before someone was “kind enough” to making clear Southborough was “not the target audience” for the grants and too affluent to ever get one.
However, Donovan believed it would be worth applying one more time. He posited that the community’s need might not be an issue in a future round.
The Library Director explained that the “competitive process” in this round was new. In past rounds, qualifying libraries that scored lower for needs were pushed further out on the waitlist timeline, but not outright rejected. He believed that MBLC might revert to that past model next time.
Donovan also told Trustees that he believed much of the work done on the recent application could be reused as a foundation for a future application. And he stressed that there could fewer competitors next time. But he allowed that there is no need to decide until a new round opens.
Trustee Mary Tinti agreed with Donovan’s space assessment recommendation. She said it will be important to have concrete, rather than abstract data, as the Town continues “larger conversations” about its overall municipal building needs.
Davis advocated that the work should be conducted by an independent consultant. Other Trustees agreed. Donovan said he would seek out referrals to discuss at their next meeting.
- If a new library grant process opens in 2027, it likely wouldn’t be awarded until 2028. The current round opened in 2023 with announcements originally scheduled for September 2024. (After some towns opposed the MBTA Communities law the state threatened that it wouldn’t provide grants to non-compliant municipalities. The library grant decision was then pushed to follow the December 31st compliance deadline.)
- Two $125K awards were made to small towns in the fall, and thirteen $100K grants were announced as awarded in January, although six of those are technically “waitlisted” to get their funds in a future year.
- The document didn’t clarify if incomes represented individuals or households.
