Well, this is the week we’ve been dreading.  We’ve been told to expect pink slips at work, which, while definitely a bummer, will also probably work out nicely for me.  Which makes me feel more than a bit guilty.

Library systems can be funded in all sorts of ways.  Many small communities fund their libraries through a tax-percentage.  You know, .000000045% of everyone’s property taxes go to support the library system.  Which is a good system when you have people in the communities willing to vote their approval of, and then hand over, the $1 or $2 a year to work it that way.  My library system – actually all the systems in NYC – are sort of odd in that we have boards of trustees like NFPs, but we are funded on a year-to-year basis via state & city budgets, just like the fire department or the police department.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news for the last few years, you know that NY state is practically broke, but even more than that, our state legislature is completely non-functional.   We still don’t have a state budget in place for FY 2011, which, of course, affects how much money the city will have to allocate to all the services like, say, libraries, firehouses, and police stations.  So, being the Bloomdude that he is, our Mayor just said, “what the hell” and created a budget based on numbers he pulled out of his ass his best guess as to how much cash Albany would likely send downriver.

Oi.  Ouch.  Damn.

We knew it was going to be bad.  I mean, the financial crisis of 2008-09-10 has hit NYC pretty hard for obvious reasons.  Tax revenues are waaaayy down.  Organizations like the one I work for have already implemented cost-saving measures up the wazoo.  We figured we were going to take a hefty cut in funding but that it would be manageable, maybe.  That most of the funding cut would be restored, perhaps, as it usually is (in a burst of cynical political maneuvering, because that’s how it works here.)  But actually, the numbers are even more dire than we’d all been fearing, and our FearlessLeader announced two days ago that we’d be cutting our workstaff by 44% in Fiscal Year 2011 (which begins July 1).  Yes, forty-four percent.  Yesterday he announced that we’d be receiving our lay-off notices this week.

It’s a creepy feeling, waiting to be sacked.

And I know I don’t have it bad at all.  I’ve been at loose ends at work this entire year (as I believe I’ve mentioned here once or twice!)  I’ve been planning on going out on maternity leave at the end of August, and never coming back.  As it stands as of this week, assuming I do get the axe, my last day will be August 15.  And I’ll be eligible to collect unemployment and remain insured under COBRA for quite a while.  And my husband owns our house, and can afford to keep me in the cheap-ass manner to which I am accustomed.

But it’s still weird.  And it’s really going to be hard for my friends who don’t have a support system in place.  And it’s horrific to imagine – what if I were just going through IF treatment NOW.  As it is, the timing couldn’t be nicer for me, but what a difference a year would have made!  Trying to keep my head together through a job loss while going through IVF would have been awful.  I have friends who will have to leave NYC almost immediately.  NYC librarian wages are among the lowest in the country, despite the unbelievably high cost of living here.  No one has any savings.  They’re going to have to find a job elsewhere and hie themselves hence.  Others are looking at moving in with in-laws, taking a few odd jobs to make ends meet.  Maybe going back to school, because if you’re in school, at least you don’t have to pay back student loans…

This is really going to suck.

Meanwhile, the off-color jokes at work continue – if only a LIBRARIAN had noticed smoke coming from the car, we’d have gotten all of our funding restored just like the cops did.  Hey – is it too late to rent an SUV?   Bemoaning our own ineffectual reputation – why doesn’t anyone ever worry about someone going all Library when they get laid off?  Why should the post office get all the glory?

And, being librarians, we research.  We check into COBRA benefits, and we look up hiring statistics in nearby states.  We trade Job list forum addresses, and we wonder out loud if this is the year to concentrate on finding an agent for our novel.  We write down the addresses & home phone numbers of our friends & even our acquaintances, like seniors in the last week of high school, because we know we’re going to be jonesing for some library gossip in another few months, and who knows who’ll be around to provide it?

It’s strange times in the library system.  If you’re in NYC, stop into a branch today and say something nice to someone who works there.  Trust me – we all could use a sympathetic pat on the back today.