Nevada City Advocate - A free news & entertainment Newspaper Serving Nevada City & Greater Nevada County: Closing the books on an era?

Closing the books on an era?
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Pat Butler on Nov 09 08:40am
 
Learn more about the proposed budget cuts by reading the November edition of the
Nevada City Advocate, a free community newspaper available at many locations in
Nevada City, Grass Valley and the San Juan Ridge.
By Pat Butler
Nevada City Advocate
The Nevada County Library System will likely see branch closures and a sharp
reduction in services unless a contractor is found to stretch the system’s
shrinking budget, according to Rick Haffey, the county’s chief executive
officer.
“The goal is to try and maintain our service levels,” Haffey said of the
county’s plan to seek proposals for the management of a system that has 67,000
cardholders and had more than 350,000 visits in the past year.
The libraries face an estimated $400,000 deficit due to declining sales-tax
revenues heading into the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1. The library
system now has a budget of around $2.2 million.
In order to balance next year’s budget, County Librarian Mary Ann Trygg has
recommended closing the Doris Foley Historical Library in Nevada City and the
branches in Penn Valley and Bear River as well as the eliminate the literacy
program.
One full-time employee and all temporary employees would be let go and two
full-time workers would be reduced to part-time. Five other vacant positions
would not be filled.
Finally, the Madelyn Helling Library near the Rood Center and the Royce Branch
in Grass Valley would see their hours reduced from 40 to 25 per week. In
Truckee, the hours would be cut to 30.
“I tried to provide plans to stay within the budget,” Trygg said of the
cuts that would go into effect on July 1 unless another option is found.
The Board of Supervisors voted at its Oct. 13 meeting to request proposals for
the management of the libraries. Haffey emphasized at the time that this was not
a bid to privatize the library system. Rather, he said, “it’s an effort to
save our libraries.”
Many in that audience that day raised concerns about having a public library
system managed by private company.
One woman asked how a private company would make a profit if the library system
is in such dire financial shape. “They’re going to make a profit. Where is
it going to come from?” Mary Tucker asked.
A librarian asked if the county would retain control over the books in the
library. Others wondered what would happen to the county’s 25 library
employees.
“You’re all right with your comments,” Supervisor Ted Owens said at the
meeting. “But we have to prove that outsourcing won’t work with this
model.”
In 1998 and again in 2002, Nevada County voters approved a 1/8-cent sales-tax
increase to pay for the operation of the libraries through 2018. The measure
also requires the county to contribute $565,000 annually to the library fund.
The sales-tax measure has raised as much as $1.8 million a year in the past,
which allowed the county to establish a library fund that just four years ago
had around $1 million in it. By June 30, those reserves will have dropped to an
estimated $37,000, Trygg said.
The county forecasts it will collect $1.3 million in sales tax next year for
the libraries to go along with the $565,000 general fund contribution.
Haffey said private companies “do get economies of scale” that might enable
them to offer more services than the county for the same money. In an interview
on Oct. 30, he said that a private contractor would have to guarantee it could
keep all six branches open to get the job.
The contractor also needs to work closely with Trygg, who would continue to
oversee the library system, he said.
If a contractor can’t be found that meets those baseline standards, Haffey
said it’s likely the recommended closures would go into effect on July 1. He
did say, however, that a third option “might be a hybrid where we have a
public/private effort.”
“I want to find a middle ground,” said Haffey, adding the county needs to
make a decision on this by the end of the year.
At the Oct. 13 meeting, supervisors asked Haffey to assemble a “Blue Ribbon
Committee” to seek other options to the library system’s budget shortfalls.
The county’s Library Oversight Committee, which was formed in 2003 to watch
the financial books, will likely be part of that group.
Christine Tressler, a retired Bear River High School librarian, is one of the
original members of the oversight committee. She understands the county’s
challenges. She says the book budget has been cut by 75 percent over the past
three years and that sales-tax collections are down 25 percent.
But Tressler has concerns about any proposal to contract out the management of
the entire library system to a private company or non-profit organization.
Rather, she’d like to see the county consider outsourcing parts of the
operation like book purchasing.
“These can be outsourced without giving up the shop,” she said.
Tressler also wonders how a private company can do what the county can’t with
the same amount of money.
“The question is could they actually keep the branches open and the hours
up,” she said.