Unlike some agencies which receive State funding, the Lancaster Public Library has not yet been deeply hit by the current budget impasse in Harrisburg. The greatest challenge so far brought by the stalemate has been the inability to definitively plan for the Library’s 2010 budget. As Board President John McGrann explained at the August 25 board meeting, “At this point, the impasse has not exactly affected us…The bigger challenge that we’re facing is that we haven’t been able to effectively plan because we don’t know where we stand.”
Meanwhile, the Library Board has been investigating cost-cutting measures to reach a more balanced budget for its next fiscal year. In a partly confidential document distributed to the Board, considerations included staff and hour reductions and—in the most extreme scenario—the elimination of education support programs like “Ready to Read,” which provides literacy training to parents of pre-school aged children.
The budget cuts in question could serve to reduce the budget deficit and endowment fund dependency for the funding-strapped library, which saw a 35% funding decrease between 2006 and 2008. According to Interim Executive Director Joyce Sands, the document assumes funding consistent with that of the 2009 budget. But the passage of the State Budget, which could include a 55% cut in library funding, would dramatically recast the question of cuts: “This is going to be grueling. But this is an idea of what things are there that could [be cut],” Sands said.
Future budget uncertainties aside, the impasse has recently affected the library’s finances in one concrete way. Treasurer Karen Haley Field reported that the District Library Center, which runs on a fiscal year of July-June, is presently unfunded in the absence of a State Budget. The District Center is a 100% state funded cooperative-type entity which provides services to all county residents such as interlibrary loans, reference and the Duke Street Business Center. As administrator of the District Center, the Lancaster Public Library has—essentially by default—ended up footing the bill for District operations without contributions from the other thirteen libraries in Lancaster County.
The Board will be contacting these libraries in the near future to notify them of the situation and discuss a more equitable arrangement.
