Because county managers reduced funding to the Rockingham County (N.C.) Public Library by $61,500 this fiscal year, the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources has threatened to withhold its entire contribution of $137,000 to the county library system.
The state code governing library funding says that all state aid can be cut to the library if the county makes any library budget cuts, according to the November 5 Greensboro News-Record. Rockingham County Manager Tom Robinson told commissioners November 4 he had sent a letter to state officials in late October explaining that the library’s 3% cut was part of a countywide 7% reduction, and it was largely caused by North Carolina’s withholding state reimbursements.
Robinson told the News-Record he had also approached the state’s county commissioner association asking for help in changing the way the state funds its libraries.
Posted November 11, 2002.