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Wednesday, March 24, 2010
News Libraries will stay open, services will be cut
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 1:47 PM
The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library's board of trustees held an emergency meeting today at the Main Branch in Uptown. After the library's director, Charles Brown, recapped the budget crisis timeline, he explained that the board came up with three planning scenarios between Feb. 4 and March 18 of this year.
You've already heard about the first scenario. That's what everyone's up in arms about. It included laying off 148 library employees and closing half of the library's 24 branches.
The second scenario, the one that the library trustees decided to go with, keeps the libraries open, but it isn't necessarily a winning scenario. Here are the cuts included in the second scenario: a 5-20 percent reduction in staff salaries, more than 80 employees will no longer have jobs, library branches will only be open five days per week and only for eight hours per day. In addition, storytimes, classes for job seekers, computer classes, book clubs, teen classes and "other" services will be reduced or cut completely.
The third scenario, which wasn't chosen, would have led to all branches closing one extra day per week, a "sharp" reduction in classes and other services — but no layoffs or closures. Unfortunately, the staff, which bears the brunt of the cuts in all three scenarios, would face a 20-percent salary reduction through a 10-day furlough.
The big problem with all three scenarios is this, as board member Darrell Williams pointed out: None of them are going to fix all of the library's problems. All three are temporary bandages to get the library through the 2010 fiscal year, which ends June 30. However, now that the board has chosen the second option, at least we have a couple months of closure until the board has to tackle the next budgetary crisis: The 2011 fiscal year's budget nightmare, where they face even more drastic cuts.
Of course, it's impossible to make everyone happy once the money's gone.
"I'd rather fewer have fewer branches with fewer services than 24 branches that are slapped together," said 16-year-old Scottie Stowe, a Myers Park sophomore who volunteers at ImaginOn. "Every teen deserves to have what I have," he added. By that, he means real-life job experience and classes that include things such as graphic design, networking and more. He says his volunteer experience is fodder for his resume, which he's already honing.
Ideally, Stowe said, he doesn't want to see anyone laid off. He's become close with the staff members and the patrons at ImaginOn in the three years that he's volunteered there. He worries what his peers would do without the library.
Michele Gorman, the Teen Services Coordinator at ImaginOn, does too. She says some teens are at ImaginOn all day, every day in the summer and that many spend their after school hours there as well. She's concerned that the programming cuts enacted today may mean less of an opportunity to connect with Charlotte's youth. But she's not letting it get her down. "I'm never going to let this go," she said. "I am determined to provide services for every young person in our community."
But the library isn't just about what's going on in Uptown, and it's not just about the city's young people. "It's about everyone," Gorman said.
She said she's confident that library administrators are looking at things like public transportation when it comes to making future decisions about which branches will get the ax — something that seems inevitable given the current financial situation.
Gina Grothoff, a mother who attended the meeting with her three homeschooled children, said she's waiting for one of the large corporations in Charlotte to step up and help the libraries out. "I was looking at the list of donations," she said, "and there are no banks on there." That irks her, she said, since taxpayers just bailed them out of their crisis.
As with the last library board of trustees meeting, you can catch your own recap by reading through the Twitterstream under the #cmlibrary hashtag. You don't have to have an account to read the Tweets.
The board acknowledged social media's role in galvanizing the public and pushing donations. Those donations will help keep programs, classes and services in play.
Speaking of which, you can donate to the Charlotte Meckleburg Library here.
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