The budget cuts expected for the Santa Clara County Library won’t be as severe as they were expected to be last month.
The new state budget exempts libraries from a second Educational Revenue Augmentation Fund shift of revenue, and that is “very good news for libraries,” Melinda Cervantes, Santa Clara County Librarian, said Monday.
The county library lost 44 percent of its operating budget to an ERAF shift between 1992 and 1994. Cervantes said the county library has sent approximately $10 million in property tax revenue to the state every year since 1994.
“This is the reason voters in 1994 overwhelmingly supported the Library Benefit Assessment – $33.66 per single-family home – that will expire June 30, 2005,” she explained. “The assessment accounts for approximately 23 percent of the library’s operating budget.”
The Library Joint Powers Authority Board is scheduled to meet at 1:30 p.m., Aug. 26, in the lower level meeting room of the Campbell Library, 77 Harrison Ave., to consider the county library budget.
“It appears as though we will not have to lay off any staff,” Cervantes said Monday. “There will be service cuts, we just don’t know the degree to which services will be impacted.”
The county librarian said the JPA budget in June included layoffs of 30.5 full-time-equivalent staff that would have taken effect Nov. 1. The library system is already working at a reduced staffing level.
“We will ask the board how many vacant positions do we want to fill in the current year, then determine what that means for open hours at the libraries,” Cervantes said.
The county offered an early retirement incentive to employees this year, and 14 employees countywide retired by July 1.
In an auxiliary effort to save money, the county eliminated 24 already-vacant positions, also by July 1. The total number of empty positions is 36 – two positions overlapped, Cervantes said in July.
“The county is really trying to hold open … the critical positions … and we’re still considering closing Mondays systemwide,” she said then.
Deputy County Librarian Sarah Flowers said in July that the county is “looking carefully at every vacant position and making a case-by-case decision” on whether to fill it.
“In some cases, we’re trying to fill the positions now, either by transfer or promotion. In other cases, we’re holding off on even making the decision about filling them until after we have a state budget and have a better idea of what our final budget will be. In all cases, we’re hoping to avoid hiring any new people from the outside, since we don’t want to hire people if it’s likely we’ll have to lay them off next July,” Flowers said.
New fines and fees
Special tax campaign
An election subcommittee of library staff, JPA members, union representatives, members of the public and others have begun organizing the campaign. The JPA will most likely decide how much tax to seek after polling the community.
