LSSI To Manage New
Lancaster, Texas, Library
The Lancaster, Texas, city council voted June 25 to hire Library Systems and Services Incorporated (LSSI) to run its new Lancaster Veterans Memorial Library.
Mayor Joe Tillotson told the June 29 Dallas Morning News that the arrangement was a great deal for the city, noting that the firm agreed to operate the library for $587,760 in fiscal year 2001–02, less than the city’s preliminary estimate of $700,000. The new 23,000-square-foot, $4-million facility, which opened in June, is three-and-a-half times larger than the previous one.
The newspaper reported that the city decided to outsource management of its library as part of cost-cutting efforts necessitated by a possible shortfall of several million dollars in sales-tax revenue after a Lancaster-based Southwestern Bell plant started conducting more of its sales outside the local distribution center.
LSSI Vice President Bob Windrow stressed that the library still belongs the city and that the city council will continue to make all policy decisions. Tillotson said all library employees would retain their jobs.
Among the facilities managed by LSSI are libraries in Riverside County, California; Jersey City, New Jersey; and Fargo, North Dakota.
Posted July 9, 2001.
|
