North Carolina Withholds
End-of-Year Library Funds
North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley’s office decided in mid-May to withhold the May and June aid payments for public safety and welfare, including $2.1 million earmarked for public libraries, because the state failed to meet its budgeted revenue targets for FY 2001–2002. This amounts to a 15% cut in the annual allotment and compounds an earlier 7% reduction. According to the May 14 Mount Airy News, 76 public library systems receive state funding, including 15 regional libraries responsible for branches in multiple counties.
“There was no warning, no heads-up,” Wake County Public Library System Director Thomas Moore said in the May 14 Raleigh News and Observer. For Moore’s 17-branch system, the cuts mean a loss of $70,000 and roughly 4,000 books that won’t be purchased. Durham County’s eight-branch system will forfeit $33,000, Johnston County will give up $26,000, and the Chapel Hill Public Library will lose nearly $5,000.
The Northwestern Regional Library, which operates branches in Surry, Yadkin, Alleghany, and Stokes counties, may have to lay off employees or even close some libraries. “The region does not have the money in reserve to cover the shortfall,” NRL Director Michael Sawyer said. “With the additional unexpected cuts, it has deprived us of meeting the region payroll for the final two months of the fiscal year.”
Brenda Follmer, spokeswoman for the state Department of Cultural Resources, said that the budget for next year, which begins July 1, looks equally bleak. The department must cut state aid to libraries by 7–11%, amounting to a loss of $1.8 million. “Libraries are trying to come to grips with this,” Follmer told the News and Observer. “It’s not clear what kind of funding they’re going to get next year.”
Posted May 20, 2002.
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