Sat Nov 21 2009
By Diane Smith
Record-Courier staff writer
Most voters in Portage County will be asked to approve a small levy to provide local funding to the library system for the first time.
Issue 6, a 0.5-mill, 10-year levy, would benefit the Portage District Library, which has branches in Aurora, Brimfield, Garrettsville, Randolph, Streetsboro and Windham. All voters in Portage County will decide the issue, except those who live in the Kent or Ravenna school districts.
Should the levy pass, the library system hopes to reverse cutbacks made this year because of cuts to state funding.
Cecelia Swanson, director of the Portage District Library, said the libraries have been in dire straits since 2001, when the Ohio legislature froze state funding to libraries.
“We’ve been making little changes for years,” Swanson said. “This year, it really came to the point where the recession came and took our income down to minimal levels.”
At the beginning of the year, libraries found themselves facing funding that was 20 percent short of what they expected. The Portage District Library responded by closing five of its branches one day per week, and adjusting hours at all its branches.
By summer, a proposed budget threatened to slash funding another 30 percent.
In response to the threatened 50-percent cut, the district library planned to close branches in Randolph, Streetsboro and Windham if cuts were as severe as feared. However, the libraries ended up getting only another 11 percent cut over two years.
The Portage District Library gets 100 percent of its funding from the state.
“We’re always at the mercy of the economy and the legislature,” Swanson said. “We’re thinking that at least with some local funding, we’ll be able to have some stability.”
The levy will cost the owner of a $100,000 home $15 per year, or $1.25 per month. If it is approved, the levy will enable the district to restore the hours cuts implemented this year, allowing branches to be open six days per week and for more than five hours daily. Also, she noted, there will be money restored to the library’s materials budget, which has been slashed over the years.
“You’re not seeing as many new books on that book shelf,” she said. “Everything we’ve been buying lately has been because of some very generous donations.”
Eventually, Swanson said, the hope is to expand library service to areas where the district library does not have a presence. A bookmobile to the Southeast Local School District was discontinued because of budget cuts.
“Schools and libraries are really facing some tough economic issues,” she said.
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