Jones Library Building Project Financial Status: October 2026: $8.4 Million Still Owed to Town
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Since the last update here in September 2026, the Jones Library has not made any additional payments to the Town for its share of the building project ($13,822,518).
The amounts paid and owed to the town are shown on the following graph that will be updated and posted regularly in the Indy.
The Capital Campaign has now spent over $850,000 on fundraising and more than $2.3 million of pledges remain unpaid.
In the email blast this morning, 10/18/26, the Jones Library Capital Campaign claims, “We have also surpassed the $10M mark, having raised over $10.3M as of October 1!”. And yet, only $5.38 million has been paid to the town. Where’s this other $5 million the campaign claims to have raised??
The only figure that matters is the amount that has been paid to the town. Until that debt is fully paid, we the taxpayers are paying for the library’s shortfall through short term loans with interest. That’s real dollars that could arguably go to much higher priority uses.
Excellent question, Toni. The $10M claim of the Library minus the $5.4M paid to the the town leaves $4.6M to account for. Part of that is the $850K they have paid for fundraising and the $2.4M of pledge money that has not actually been received. The library also spent about $500K to do the re-design when the first bid came in $7M over budget. That still leaves about $800K unaccounted for – maybe another check is in the mail.