Local Funding Makes a Big Difference
in Michigan
Although most libraries in Michigan have had to trim budgets, the state’s economic slump is having a worse effect on those supported almost entirely by local revenue.
The Berkley Public Library, dependant on the city’s budget that is now squeezed by state revenue-sharing cuts and the defeat of two proposals to increase the city’s millage rate, will lay off Children’s Librarian Alexander Krentzin January 10. The decision is not popular with some parents, who have appreciated his popular storytime sessions for preschoolers in the reading room he helped design four years ago. “I know some of my friends would like to picket about this,” patron Sandy Johnson said in the December 26 Detroit Free Press.
The economic downtown has at the same time forced more people, including children, into libraries than ever, according to Michigan Library Association Executive Director Stephen Kershner. “Where do many children start to read?” he asked. “Not at school. It’s in the public library.”
Local funding makes a crucial difference in Michigan, which in 2001–2002 provided the lowest level of funding for public libraries ($1.59 per capita) among states with similar populations, according to a study by the Public Library Funding Initiative Group, a grassroots effort working to provide better state library funding. The cash-rich Clinton-Macomb Public Library is supported by a one-mill property tax approved by voters in 1998 and devoted strictly to library needs. The library opened a new branch in 2001, another in 2002, and in 2003 will open one of the biggest libraries in the county with more than 100 computers, the Free Press reported.
Posted December 30, 2002.
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