Ex-county librarian leads fight against outsourcing of library management

Photo by Bob Lickter Mary Ann Trygg, the current county librarian, had the difficult task of finding $400,000 in cuts to the library budget.

“It’s not a business,” Madelyn Helling said of the libraries. “You can’t run it the same. Everything is different. A business would look at costs in a different way than I would have.”

While Nevada County officials consider the lone proposal to manage its library system, Madeline Helling, whose name graces the largest of the six branches, is among those fighting to maintain the status quo.

 “People want local control,” said Helling, the county librarian for 17 years before retiring in 1991. “I think that’s a major factor in this.”

 The Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 at its Oct. 13 meeting to accept proposals to manage a county library system that serves 67,000 cardholders and has 25 full-time employees.

 The deadline for the requests was Nov. 19. Library Systems & Services of Germantown, Md., is the only company to bid to manage the entire library system. The Friends of the Nevada County Libraries submitted a bid to manage the Doris Foley Historical Library in Nevada City. No details were released on those bids.

 Nevada County CEO Rick Haffey recommended the county entertain proposals to contract out the management of the library system, which is expected to receive about $400,000 less in sales-tax revenue in the next fiscal year.

 County Librarian Mary Ann Trygg has recommended closing Doris Foley and the Bear River and Penn Valley branches, reducing hours at Madeline Helling, the Royce Branch in Grass Valley and at the Truckee library, and eliminating the literacy program. The county also would not fill several open positions as part of the recommended cuts.

  Haffey said the county needs to cut the library budget from $2.4 million to $2 million to balance its projected budget. The libraries get $565,000 from the general fund. The remaining money comes from a voter-approved 1/8-cent sales tax measure that is expected to raise $1.3 million in the next fiscal year. Previously, the libraries have received as much as $1.8 million a year in sales-tax revenue.

 Opposition to an outsourcing plan is emerging on several fronts, including by the Friends of the Nevada County Libraries organizations in western Nevada County and Truckee.

 Helling, meanwhile, is personally gathering signatures and delivering petitions to the clerk of the Board of Supervisors. The petitions state that residents want to keep the libraries under “local government control” and not turned over to a “profit-making company.”

 “It’s not a business,” Helling said of the libraries. “You can’t run it the same. Everything is different. A business would look at costs in a different way than I would have.”

 Helling was the county librarian in 1976 when California voters approved Prop. 13, which she said cut was already a meager library budget by one-third.

 “Our budget was much smaller then. My goodness we only had a $10,000 book budget,” she said. “That why the Friends of the Libraries are so important.”

 Representatives of the organization, which raises money to purchase books and provides volunteers to the library system, have said their support would likely wane if a private company took over the system.

 Haffey’s request for proposals stated that the company managing the library system would hire its own employees and oversee daily operations. The company would be required to report to County Librarian Mary Ann Trygg.

 Helling, who helped secure a $1 million grant that went toward the construction of the library in her name at the Rood Center Campus, said outsourcing would likely diminish the role of the county librarian.

 “It would be reporting to a corporation,” she said. “You would not have the same involvement in decision-making that you have now.”

 Laura Matteson, the assistant county executive officer, said the next step is for a staff review committee to study the proposal from Library Systems & Services, a Maryland company that has libraries in Redding and Riverside County among its clients.

 If the proposal meets goals established by county staff, it will be sent to the Board of Supervisors for their consideration in either December or January.

 Helling believes the county can manage the library system as well as a company that needs to earn a profit.

 “The libraries are not going to close if they don’t privatize and the company is not going to get any more money,” she said. “So, what’s involved here is cuts.”