Washington’s City Council, with a 4-1 vote during its meeting Monday, appropriated $8,000 for renovations to the city-owned Brown Library.

The allocation comes after $40,000 that would have gone to the library was removed from the current city budget before it was adopted in May. In recent weeks, Steve Moler, president of the Brown Library Board of Trustees, and Rick Gagliano, the board’s vice president, made appeals to city officials to provide some money to renovate the library to make it more efficient and user friendly.

Voting to provide the $8,000 were council members Larry Beeman, Richard Brooks, Virginia Finnerty and William Pitt. Councilman Doug Mercer voted against the allocation.

The $8,000 for the library will come from the fund balance in the city’s general fund.

“We’ve had requests from the director of library services along with the library board to actually renovate a portion of their structure to be more efficient. The original request in this budget was for $40,000. We eliminated that because of the budget restraints. Subsequently, Steve Moler asked us to take a look at the budget. He came forward and made a presentation. Subsequently, at the last meeting, we had another presentation. The question came up again about what was the council’s intent in terms of the $8,000,” City Manager Bobby Roberson said. “I said I would put it back on the agenda, and if the council wants to approve the $8,000, it would take a fund-balance amendment to appropriate the $8,000.”

During his remarks to the council Monday, Moler said he wanted to “arouse some interest” in assisting the library board in its effort to renovate some areas of the library, including the elevator area and periodical room. “We want to reconfigure some things inside the building that will be more efficient and that will help us carry out our responsibilities, being as efficient as we can with the monies that we have, to provide some of the best library services in eastern North Carolina,” Moler said.

Moler said two estimates for the renovation work were submitted to the library board. One estimate was over $8,000, while the other estimate was under $8,000, said Moler, who did not specify the exact amount of the estimates.