Hawaii State Librarian Virginia Lowell has urged that security guards be retained in the state’s public libraries throughout the length of the statewide teacher strike. The guards were scheduled to be eliminated as part of an across-the-board 1% budget cut ordered by Gov. Ben Cayetano March 9.
The Department of Public Safety told Lowell that its cuts would include $172,000 for guards at the state’s 50 libraries, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported April 9. Lowell said her agency is unable to pay for the guards itself in view of a cut of some $200,000 in its own budget.
With the likelihood of additional children coming to the libraries during the strike, “the library staff was petrified that the guards would be lost,” Lowell told the newspaper. Although it’s expected that the guards would continue through June, she cautioned that “things like the strike are fluid. It’s not definite.”
The Honolulu Advertiser said March 30 that further budget cuts may reduce funding for the state’s libraries anywhere from $2 million to $4.3 million next year.
Posted April 16, 2001.