Retiring Guy's Digest: From the Archives: Advocating for Wisconsin's Libraries 2002

Wednesday, January 23. (Letter to Mom)

Like most other states, Wisconsin has found itself with a huge budget deficit. $1,117,300,000 to be exact. Yes, more than one billion dollars. In spite of how some Republican officials are trying to spin it, the problem started to occur well before September 11th. The impact of the terrorist attacks only accelerated the process. Though neither party has the spine to admit it, a $750,000,000 tax cut passed in 2000 is a major contributor to the state’s current fiscal mess.

Yesterday Governor Scott McCallum introduced his budget reform bill. Among the proposed cuts are $737,500 for public library system aids, to take effect next year, which amounts to 5% of the overall state budget for this particular program. Public libraries do not receive any of this state aid directly, but library systems do allow us to share resources on a regional basis and provides services more efficiently. For example, in the South Central Library System, of which Middleton is a member, we share an online computer system, online full-text databases, and delivery service. Computer training and other continuing education activities are delivered on a system-wide basis. South Central’s share of this cut is $100,000, since it is one of the largest of the state’s 17 public library systems. The impacts are yet to be determined.

The Governor is also proposing a phase-out of state shared revenues to municipalities and counties, a program that was started in 1911 with the introduction of a state income tax. It was designed to provide local property tax relief, equalize revenue raising ability among local governments (i.e., to even the playing field between rich and poor communities), and provide compensation for nontaxable utility properties. Some communities are more dependent upon this aid than others. Shared revenues comprise 50% of Milwaukee’s budget and nearly two-thirds of Beloit’s.

The reaction: “Beloit will cease to exist as a municipality without state aid,” warned mayor Jane Wood.

Beloit receives $19,000,000 in state aid and levies $9,000,000 in local property taxes. Their police budget alone is $8,000,000, reflecting the high crime rate in Wisconsin’s most depressed city. Beloit wasn’t much of a player during the boom years of the 1990s.

Middleton receives $780,249 in state shared revenue, which, to my relief when I double-checked the figures yesterday, comprises just 6.7% of the city’s total operating revenues. The city’s appropriation to the library is $580,000, so if the mayor decided to go with across-the-board cuts to department budgets, I’d have to slice $38,860 from the library’s budget.

But the library also receives $340,000 from the Dane County Library Service, which serves to reimbursement us for non-resident and cross-municipal use. In other words, the library is paid for use by residents of the City of Madison, Town of Middleton, and other neighboring municipalities. Out of a total circulation of 490,000 last year, 55% was to people who live outside the city of Middleton. The county executive estimated that Dane County will lose about $6,000,000 if the budget reform bill is passed as presented by the Governor.

The current county budget totals $340,000,000. All of a sudden, six million dollars doesn’t sound like so much.

I’m glad I took the time to conduct this review. My initial reaction to the news of budget reform bill now seems to have been overwrought. At one point, I was anticipating the need to cut hours, staff, the materials budget, programming, and other budget lines. Now it seems as though any cuts to the budget are not likely to occur this year. That won’t be the case in municipalities that are more dependent upon state shared revenue. I don’t envy the director of the Beloit Public Library.

Thursday, January 24 (Letter to Mom)

Yesterday morning I received a telephone call from a reporter for the Capital Times, Madison’s afternoon newspaper. She had noticed “public library system aids” included among the list of programs to be cut in the Governor’s budget reform bill and wondered what the impact might be on the public libraries in Dane County. We talked for about 15 minutes and then I referred her to Peter Hamon, the Director of the South Central Library System. When she introduced herself at the beginning of our conversation, I thought her name sounded familiar. Right before we signed off, she mentioned she had been in the Advanced Reference class I taught at the library school in the fall of 1998. (She was working for the Cap Times then, too.) I told her that I remembered her and thanked her profusely for her interest in covering the library’s side of the story in this state budget mess.

I’ve enclosed the front section of today’s paper. As you can see, the article appeared on the front page, above the fold. What great placement! I figured that we’d get buried on page 4 of the local section. Only John Walker Lindh got higher billing.

The publication of the article is particularly timely as the Wisconsin Library Association’s annual legislative day takes place next Tuesday, the 29th. State legislators and their staff members read both Madison papers very carefully, so they’ll have heard about the “triple whammy” before we sit down and talk with them.

The “triple whammy” refers to the combined effects of state, county, and local budget cuts, which I described in yesterday’s portion of this letter. For Middleton, the blow should be relatively light, but we do face some unknown factors that may change how the cuts are administered.

For example, it is very possible, perhaps inevitable, that the City of Middleton could determine that police and fire services are sacrosanct. If that becomes the case, then $4,000,000 of the city’s operating budget needs to be taken out of the equation. The resulting cuts will be made disproportionately among the library, the senior center, the recreation department, and public works. The library’s share of pain then jumps to around $60,000, I figure.

There’s at least one additional factor to consider, which I shared at a staff meeting this afternoon.

“The dollar figures on the revenue side of the city’s budget – and there are two pages of them – are only estimates,” I explained. “There’s no guarantee that these targets as going to be met, as we clearly found out with the state shared revenue program. If the economy continues to slide, then fees collected for licenses and permits and other charges are likely to decrease. The result will be another round of budget cuts. And these are certain to be the painful ones.”

Up until this week, we were planning to maintain our Sunday hours year-round. Since we first expanded the library’s schedule in 1999, we have remained closed on Sundays during the summer. In light of a very uncertain budget picture for the rest of the year, and perhaps into 2003, I will ask the library board to reconsider this plan at their February's meeting. In this new environment, though, I just can’t see the point of expanding the library’s hours of operation when we may be forced to cut back from our current schedule.

Oops! Suddenly, I’m not as consoled as I was yesterday.