(TROY, MI) – The Troy Public Library, Troy Museum and Lloyd A. Stage Nature Center have new operating hours as of July 1st as a result of the Troy City Council’s approval at its May 10 meeting of the City budget for the July 1, 2010 - June 30, 2011 fiscal year.
The Troy Public Library will no longer be open on Saturdays and will now close one hour earlier on Fridays and Sundays. The hours on Friday will be 10 am - 5 pm and on Sunday, 1 - 5 pm.
The Troy Museum & Historic Village will be open Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday from
10 am - 3 pm. Weekend programs will no longer be offered.
The new hours for the Lloyd A. Stage Nature Center will be Thursday & Friday, 10 am-2 pm; Saturday, 10 am - 4pm and Sunday 12 noon - 4 pm. It will be closed Monday-Wednesday.
City Manager John Szerlag explains that these reductions are part of the difficult decisions required of City Council and City Staff as they align the City’s budget with declining property values.
“The community’s priorities, based on the outcome of the February 23, 2010 special millage election, Troy is going to concentrate on its Core Services of Police and Fire Protection and infrastructure maintenance. This means our quality of life service venues (like the Library, Community Center, Museum and Nature Center) must be self supporting if we are to keep them open,” said Szerlag. “The information I have disseminated over the past several months has not been easy. I don’t like having to eliminate positions, lay people off or cut City services, but we were directed to proceed with Option 1 in our approach to reaching a balanced budget, the option that best allows for the protection of public safety services.”
The first option (Option 1) prioritized
public safety, seeking to sustain personnel and operating funds at as high a
level as possible. The second option (Option
2) spreads the reduction burden across all budgets, an approach that would have
resulted in more significant cuts to the City’s police and fire entities. Option 2 would have resulted in more
cuts to the Police Department; an approach City Council did not feel was in the
best interests of the community. With community input, City Council directed
Staff to follow Option 1 in developing the budget going forward.
The Mayor and City Council approved a balanced City Budget for 2010-11, as well as a three-year rolling budget (2011/12 – 2012/13), a process that Szerlag said was especially difficult given the declining revenues affecting Troy and every other community in Michigan.
“We are truly in the ‘perfect storm’ of municipal financial challenges,” he said. “Option I will be utilized in conjunction with regionalization, privatization and reductions in staffing as well as wage and benefit concessions.”
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