To the editor:

Prior to the recent school budget/board elections, you published a letter from a reader that raised questions about the operations of local libraries. The letter called to mind some related questions I had been pondering since I moved here, for example: under what authority do library budgets piggy-back the school voting with its nearly automatic approval record; why, as essentially a property tax, do library budgets not face the 2 percent cap; why do the persons who will be levying that tax not appear, like those running for school boards, on the ballot; and whether towns and villages make subsidy payments beyond the property taxes to libraries within their jurisdictions?

By the way, over a year ago, I called the office of one of my New York state legislators and posed those questions. A staffer assured me, while he could not answer right away, that he “would get back to me.” I have not heard from that office again.   

 Jack Bligh

Manlius