[Summit] PPL finances

[Ben Vanzetti]

I got an insider's view of the PPL's money management as a library student .

When I was in library school in the mid to late-1990's, I interviewed the budget director for my management class. I had to interview a financial director and do a  class presentation about a library's budget. This in the '90's when .orgs were flush with money, the DOW had just hit 10,000, etc. Since I went to school in Boston, but live in Prov, I chose the PPL .  

I remember two things about the interview and my class presentation: 

1. The director had a really difficult time trying to explain to me where they get their money. It was so complicated. At the time, I didn't know any better and I'm not a math whiz, so I chalked it up to ignorance, etc. I remember struggling to write the paper afterwards. 

2. As I watched everyone else's presentation, I kept thinking: "What am I doing wrong or not getting? Why is everyone else's budget so much easier to understand?" When I finally did my presentation, I could not explain to my classmates where exactly the money come from. Part-private, part-public, endowments, etc. It went on and on. My paper was just as complicated and difficult! I should dig it up sometime.

I only remembered all this years after when I read the articles regarding their staff layoffs and the subsequent explanations from management. The finances at the PPL seem shady to me. It seems like a sketchy, complex situation. I got the impression even then that there's stuff the public doesn't know. I highly doubt they would allow a library student to interview them about their finances now, after everything that's happened. 

Just one more thing about the sign: Zoning laws exist for a reason.  One thing zoning laws do is protect an already-busy Hope Street from becoming a Warwick-style strip-mall dump.  Ridiculous signs fall under these guidelines. If a "donor" tries to bribe the library into breaking and/or re-writing zoning laws, they can keep their money. The Providence Zoning Board (and the SNA) has more to worry about than playing games with a "philanthropist". 

 
---------------------------------
Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels 
in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://sna.providence.ri.us/pipermail/summit_sna.providence.ri.us/attachments/20070329/90f10f48/attachment.htm>