LAKE COUNTY — With Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger making deep cuts to the proposed 2008-09 state budget, the state”s?including Lake County”s?libraries are not immune. The cuts will translate to book-buying cutbacks at the county”s four libraries.
The California public library system sustained $8 million in cuts during fiscal year 2007-08 that translated to $45,000 in loses for the county”s libraries under the public library foundation (PLF) per quarter. In addition, the county lost money because of cuts made to the transaction based reimbursement (TBR) program, a source of revenue based on inter-county book borrowing.
“With the TBR, the state has an amount they keep, so the amount we get is different than the actual dollars. The state is retaining more of a portion this year, so we”re not going to get as much,” County Librarian Kathy Jansen said.
This fiscal year, the county stands to lose $75,000 to $80,000 each quarter. Jansen said that information is based on mid-year adjustments that recently took place when Jansen sat down with her budget advisor to discuss another year of operating on a bare-bones budget.
For 2008-09, the governor has proposed cutting an additional 10 percent from all general fund programs?which means another $1.4 million in cuts to the PLF and $1.4 million to the TBR programs.
“Probably next year is when it”s really going to hit us. We had some salary savings for this year that helped us through the cuts. It came from someone being on a leave of absence, and we didn”t fill a position as soon as possible,” Jansen said.
She added, “Next year looks really grim with what the governor is proposing. What we”ve lost this year, it”s going to be at least that much again.”
The county has not established a hiring freeze at this time, Jansen said, and cuts will instead start with books. “The book budget is where a lot of cuts and reductions come from. We”ve got to pay utilities, we don”t want to lay off people and we want to keep libraries open. Laid off people translate to reducing hours, so it”s the book budget that”s affected. It will mean less books on the shelf,” Jansen said.
Finding supplemental funding specifically for books helps county libraries a great deal, Jansen said. “The Friends of the Library are wonderful. They give us a lot of money for books and books on CD. They do the summer reading program and over the year both the Lake County-wide friends and the Middletown friends provide thousands of dollars. They”re getting to be more active; as it grows their help will be even greater. I hope things look up for the library,” Jansen said.
According to Irehne Dishman of the Lake County Friends of the Library, there will be a special Valentine”s Day book sale at the Lakeport library branch. The organization typically conducts semi-annual book sales to support the libraries.
“We had such good success with our Christmas holiday book bag sale, we”re trying another one,” Dishman said. The sale begins February 4, with red book bags “appropriately decorated for the holiday and stuffed with romance, period, historical, etc. books and CDs,” Dishman said.
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com
