Mondowney Accepts Detroit Top Post amid Cash-Flow Kerfuffle
Detroit Library Commission President Georgia A. Hill announced August 17 that Jo Anne Mondowney has accepted the top post at Detroit Public Library, effective August 24. Her appointment as director comes amid controversy raised in June over the city’s redirection of tax money intended for library and public school employees to the city payroll and other obligations.
The Detroit Free Press raised questions about the library’s funding in a June 20 article that reported Library Commissioner Jonathan Kinloch as saying “library staff learned this week that the city spent $6.2 million in property tax money that was supposed to go to the library,” dating back to July of last year, a charge Kinloch said was “horrible, and it’s illegal.” There was no comment from Mayor Dave Bing’s office, and there has been no follow-up in the Free Press.
No stranger to city budget issues, Mondowney has been director of the Flint (Mich.) Public Library for the past seven years and was formerly with the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, where she served as a marketing manager and special assistant to the executive director. She told American Libraries in July that she had decided to accept the Detroit post but was not ready for an interview about the financial situation. It was her understanding, however, “that the ‘$6.2 million’ story is not quite what it seems.”
Mondowney is a member of the Library of Michigan’s Library Services and Technology Act Advisory Council and the Advisory Board for the Library and Information Science Program at Wayne State University; she has also held committee positions with the American Library Association, including chair of the Budget Analysis and Review Committee. She received her master’s of library science degree from Clark-Atlanta University, and completed post-graduate work in advanced accounting at the University of Baltimore and services marketing from John Hopkins University.
Detroit Public Library is among the largest public libraries in the nation, and is the largest library system in Michigan, with 23 neighborhood branches and a current annual budget of $44.3 million.
—Leonard Kniffel, American Libraries Online Posted on August 20, 2009.