“One of the most joyous spaces.” “We see so many parents and children and teachers and seniors.” “It’s one of the few places where people care.” “I grew up in that library.”
Those are just a few of the ways community members described the Chapel Hill Public Library and their patronage to the Orange County Board of Commissioners last Tuesday. Even more comments flooded into their email inbox, as encouraged by the Friends of the Chapel Hill Public Library organization that advocates for the Chapel Hill institution.
One of the more high-profile and charged issues this budget season in Orange County is based on funding for the Chapel Hill Public Library. After receiving more than $620,000 annually from the county government, the library may lose that funding as the county pays to operate its newer Drakeford Library Complex and covers several programs that have lost federal funding.
As the county commissioners weigh what to pass, though, vocal opposition has arisen in the library’s defense. One of the most vocal is Karen Curtin, the chair of Friends of the Chapel Hill Public Library — who spoke to the board directly during the May 12 public hearing and said she believes cutting support for the award-winning, most-used library in the county is a mistake.
“It doesn’t make any sense to me,” she said of the proposal, “because 40% of Orange County resident actually live in Chapel Hill. We are residents, we are taxpayers – and what that means [in] a two-year period, we’re getting no value for our library from the Orange County taxes we pay.”
One day later, the Chapel Hill Town Council and town staff didn’t mince their words either about the county government’s proposal to phase out its annual funding for the Chapel Hill Public Library. Chapel Hill Town Manager Ted Voorhees called it “a bad decision” – while council members Camille Berry called it “mind-boggling” and Paris Miller-Foushee called it “unacceptable,” urging everyone in the room to “fight like hell” against the funding cut.
“We are all dealing with budget constraints,” Miller-Foushee added. “We are seeing a failure at the federal level and the state level. I understand the challenges that all of us are facing in terms of dealing with the budget. But we also have to understand these impacts we have on our community and how we stand together for the future.”
Currently, the Chapel Hill Public Library operates seven days a week from 10 a.m. until at least 6 p.m. But funding cuts at the county government level could change that. (Photo via the Chapel Hill Public Library.)
If Orange County adopts the proposed budget, the county’s funding of the Chapel Hill Public Library – which covers 14% of the total budget and focuses on operating costs – would be halved over the next two years before being phased out. The county government began providing supplemental funding around 2013 to help cover people who could not easily travel to the county-run library in Hillsborough. But County Manager Travis Myren’s draft budget said that because of the Drakeford Library Complex in Carrboro now being available to southern Orange County residents, that funding could be discontinued.
Chapel Hill Public Library Director Atlas Logan spoke with the town council during its May 13 work session to share her organization’s perspective and potential contingency plans. She said one likely first step would be to begin levying an annual $65 fee on all 14,813 library cardholders who live outside of town limits.
“Unfortunately, we would probably need to charge them for access,” said Logan. “As a librarian, that hurts my heart to say – that’s not something we want to do. But that would probably be one of our first lines of defense at making up those operation funds that we’ve lost.”
If all of those cardholders paid the fee, Logan said the funding gap could be made up – but it’s an unlikely scenario and would severely hurt the town’s ability to equitably provide service. Since the county’s funding largely helps the library’s part-time workers program, the director said making cuts to those staff could potentially be the next option.
“But that would have huge ramifications,” Logan added, “not only for those individuals who lose their jobs, but it would also necessitate the closure and hours — most likely on Sunday, possibly on Monday — because our part time program support are the ones who really help us cover hours on weekends and evenings.
Because the town staff’s budget was developed before the potential Orange County cuts were shared, Chapel Hill Finance Officer Amy Oland suggested the town council leave the library’s budget allocation as it is, enacting the out-of-area fee and seeing where that would leave the library’s funding gap. Then, the local government could pivot next fiscal year to make more significant changes for the losses. Voorhees agreed and stressed while he does not want to let the county “off the hook” by preemptively approving changes, he also said it is not worth delaying Chapel Hill’s budget vote.
“These are our contingencies and we ought to proceed to adopt a budget on the schedule that we’ve set,” said the town manager. “But what we do want to know is… is the council comfortable, should the county choose to do what they’re proposing, in going ahead right away and saying, ‘Fine. Then, [on] July 1, we’ll implement a non-town resident fee and we’ll probably have to tweak some of these other fees.’ We’ll see what that yields.”
At both of its on May 13 and May 20 meetings, Chapel Hill Town Council members voiced their plans to prioritize existing full-time staff and library services. But they also encouraged more upset community members to share their thoughts with the Board of County Commissioners. That included Mayor Jess Anderson, who sent out an official message to residents on the town’s newsletter list and said at the May 13 work session that people should push back as much as possible.
“This was the only library for this entire most populated part of the county,” Anderson said. “I feel that we’ve been doing a service to the county in operating this library and only charging them $600,000 – which has not gone up at all with inflation, which has not increased despite the incredible increases in the cost to operate this [place.]
“We do need to have a united front given this environment,” the mayor concluded. “And I don’t think that doing this to Chapel Hill in this way is what I expect of good partners right now.”
Featured photo by Brighton McConnell/Chapel Hill Media Group.
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