A pair of local public libraries Thursday got a temporary reprieve from budget cuts that would’ve cancelled expanded service hours supposed to start in October.
The County Council’s Health and Human Services Committee recommended cutting $438,000 allocated for hours of service from the county’s library system budget, less than the $638,000 cut proposed by County Executive Ike Leggett as part of his overall $51 million “budget savings plan.”
The $200,000 that would still be directed toward restoring library service hours, if approved by the full council, would restore hours at the Potomac and Chevy Chase libraries to pre-recession levels.
The Chevy Chase Library would again open at 10 a.m. Wednesdays, as it does on all other weekdays, and the library would remain open until 8 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. It now closes at 6 p.m. on those days.
“I’m happy specifically for my own library,” said Steve Schmal, president of the Chevy Chase Library chapter of the Friends of the Library group. “I’m a little saddened that some of the other libraries are not getting hours.”
The county’s library system was among the hardest hit by the economic downturn among county departments.
In a continuing effort to restore library services, hours and materials that were cut, the council approved a fiscal year 2016 operating budget in May that would allow the Chevy Chase, Potomac, Little Falls, Kensington and Twinbrook libraries to be open 56 hours each week.
Montgomery County Public Libraries Director Parker Hamilton said the county had decided to restore hours to specific branches based on factors including each branch’s usage, proximity to other libraries and proximity to schools with large populations of students from low-income families.
Council member Roger Berliner, who represents the district that includes four of the five libraries in question, argued that it’s time those libraries have their hours fully restored.
“This district has taken a disproportionate hit in terms of the amount of hours that are available,” Berliner said. “It’s clear just from this list. It’s not right.”
The committee also decided Thursday to cut $200,000 in spending on library materials instead of the $700,000 Leggett recommended in his budget savings plan.
While Leggett’s proposed cuts were developed in consultation with department heads, Hamilton indicated that if the council is to save any funding, she’d prefer it protect funding for library materials.
“Hours are important, but there are other ways we deliver services that are important as well,” said Hamilton, who added that the system already has 500 people on the waiting list for author Harper Lee’s much-anticipated novel, Go Set a Watchman.
Leggett proposed $1.5 million in overall cuts to the public library system, a 3.9 percent cut from the budget the council passed in May.
