Bartholomew County Council members on Monday afternoon approved an additional appropriation to pay for unexpected health insurance costs from this year for Bartholomew County Public Library employees.
Council members approved an appropriation of $350,000 that was already sitting in BCPL’s coffers, Library Director Jason Hatton said, specifying the funds come out of BCPL’s operating fund.
“I’m here to ask permission to spend cash that we have sitting in our bank accounts,” Hatton said.
The library is self-funded and its budget can only increase a certain amount based upon its growth quotient, Hatton said, so when there’s an additional expense BCPL has to ask the council to access their additional funds.
“We can’t appropriate a large amount of money to cover large expenses, because that budget’s only able to grow so much,” Hatton told council members. “If we go above that, that’s when I come to you all to ask for permission to spend that, but again it’s our money sitting in the bank.”
Hatton went on to say: “We had a bad year. A very bad year.”
