Dayton Metro Library Announces Levy Plan and New Round of Cuts

Posted on: Thursday, July 23, 2009

(From DML Homepage) The Dayton Metro Library will place a 1.75 mill replacement levy on the November ballot. The library’s Board of Trustees voted to approve the amount at Wednesday’s meeting. The current 1.25 mill levy expires at the end of the year and trustees agreed that an additional 0.5 mill was necessary.

“This local funding is more important than ever because our state money has been drastically cut,” said Tim Kambitsch, Executive Director of the Dayton Metro Library. “We are seeing record-setting use of the library and our local levy is absolutely vital to meet this demand. If this levy fails, we will be looking at a budget that is less than half of the 2008 budget and library services for our community would be slashed.”

The library has been hit by a series of cuts in state funding so far this year. The recently signed state budget will result in a 23% cut in state funding in 2009 and 30% next year to help balance the state budget. This comes on top of cuts totaling almost $3.5 million due to Ohio’s economic downturn.

The board will have to make a number of significant cuts in response to almost $5 million in lost revenues. They authorized more than $1,000,000 in spending cuts on books, media and other library materials for patron use. The library is negotiating with its employee union to match the freeze already placed on management salaries. Additional concessions are being negotiated such as furloughs and early retirement incentives.

“All these actions will help us to buy time. We want to delay, reduce and hopefully eliminate the need for layoffs this year,” Kambitsch said.

Library positions will have to be eliminated in 2010 even if the levy passes. Revenues in 2008 topped $30.3 million but the library projects that the levy increase won’t make up for all the losses in state funding. In 2010 the library expects to receive only about $28.7 million even with the additional property tax revenues.

“Eleven positions have already been eliminated or have been left vacant during the past year but additional reductions will have to be made,” said Kambitsch. “Making cuts of this magnitude has been quite difficult at a time when we have experienced rapidly growing use,” he said.

Originally scheduled as a 0.75 mill increase in May, the board voted to withdraw the issue from the ballot when it was learned that the cost of a special election would have been over $600,000 more than waiting until November. Kambitsch stated that while use of the library continues to grow beyond last year’s record level, he agreed with the board decision to lower the millage amount, due to the continuing deterioration of the economy.

“We understand that our neighbors, our friends and our community are really hurting right now,” Kambitsch said. “We want to be sensitive to our residents right now even though this lower millage means we will have to reduce services and materials,” he said.