Clermont County Curbs Service as Ohio Budget Battle Rages On
In order to plug a $1.9-million deficit left over from the FY2008 budget, the board of southeastern Ohio’s Clermont County Public Library approved July 1 the layoff of 24 workers out of the 10-branch staff of 82 full-time employees and 56 part-time staff members, effective the very next day. Additionally, trustees voted to trim service hours systemwide from 59 hours a week to 48 as of August 3, and to immediately curtail CCPL-funded outreach services and programming, and to suspend construction work on a multimillion-dollar Union Township branch.
“Anytime there are layoffs, it’s sad,” board President Joe Braun said in the July 2 Batavia Community Press. “But it’s important that we treat all branches of the library equally, which is why we didn’t close any. All of the branches are used.”
“This is before Governor [Ted] Strickland’s proposed 30% additional cut,” emphasized a July 2 statement (PDF file) released by CCPL. “The Ohio library community and public have strongly voiced their opposition to funding cuts and we simply must press on in recognition and appreciation of their support,” Executive Director David Mezack said.
With the state operating on a second interim budget set to expire July 14, Strickland has remained adamant that a total of $227.3 million in state aid to libraries be axed over the next two years to help balance the budget. According to the July 5 Mansfield News Journal, the governor had called for librarians statewide to consider a voluntary salary reduction during a Fourth of July rally for the reopening of GM’s shuttered Ontario factory. “Other leaders have taken a pay cut,” Strickland told the News Journal. “I’ve taken a pay cut.”
Strickland’s observation came two days after the News Journal reported that Mansfield/Richland County Public Library Director Joseph Palmer had stated his willingness to consider returning a portion of his $118,000 salary in the wake of contingency plans to close four branches and lay off as many as 118 employees. The library community’s reaction was swift: “If all public library librarians were to forgo their entire salaries, it still wouldn’t prevent the closure of many libraries and the gutting of services at most of the rest,” Libology blogger Rick Mason of Capital University Library in Columbus responded, adding that the governor’s suggestion “is the equivalent of suggesting that by clipping coupons and buying store brand items, an unemployed family could avoid foreclosure.”
“In a down economy, we need library services more than any other time,” Ohio Rep. Kevin Bacon (R-Worthington) agreed in a July 8 letter to the Worthington Times. Bacon and other lawmakers are being swayed by a massive outpouring of library advocacy, such as the YouTube video (.56) posted by Muskingum County Library System.
—Beverly Goldberg, American Libraries Online
Posted on July 8, 2009.