For the first time since 2010, the Jacksonville Public Library Board of Trustees meeting immediately before the annual City Council Finance Committee budget hearing didn’t resemble a war room.
“It’s a new day,” said Erin Vance Skinner, board chair.
The board convened Thursday on the eve of its presentation to the committee with the knowledge that Mayor Lenny Curry recommended a $30.7 million 2015-16 budget for public libraries, a slight increase from last year’s budget of $30.6 million.
That’s in contrast with the past five years, when the board each August had to strategize a plan to head off yet another reduction in funding while also debating, if the strategy was unsuccessful, which libraries to close or how much to reduce library hours and other services in order to meet the lower bottom line.
The library’s 2010-11 budget was approved at $41.8 million and has steadily decreased, resulting in reducing library hours to a maximum of 40 each week at the Main Library and neighborhood branch libraries.
Library Director Barbara Gubbin said the operating budget reductions also affected the materials budget used to purchase new books, E-books and digital media.
It has decreased from $5.3 million in 2005-06 to $2.9 million last year, a 46 percent drop, Gubbin said.
Curry’s recommendation for the same budget as last year was the result of meetings with the administration that also broke the five-year tradition.
“Communication with the mayor’s office was different from what we’ve seen in the past,” Skinner said. “The administration was listening to our needs instead of making their own suggestions.”
In spite of not having a fight on their hands for the first time in years, Skinner urged the trustees to attend the budget hearing and make their presence known to the committee.
“They need to see us,” she said. “We don’t want them to think we’re complacent.”
The library budget is on the committee’s agenda at 9 a.m. this morning in the council chamber at City Hall.
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