Charlotte Mecklenburg Axes Three Branches, Eyes a Dozen More

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By Beverly Goldberg

The board of the Charlotte (N.C.) Mecklenburg Library voted May 20 to close three branches in a month’s time in anticipation of an FY2011 operating budget that will be 45% smaller than the already diminished funding the library system received for FY2010. But even as trustees lamented having to establish the June 19 closing date for the Belmont, Carmel, and Checkit Outlet branches, they made it painfully clear that, unless library officials can wrangle level funding from county and municipal decision-makers,  a dozen more libraries would also be in jeopardy, as would the jobs of some 200 library workers.

Ironically, it’s a victory of sorts that only three branches are currently on the chopping block, along with the temporary shuttering of the Beatties Ford Road branch for previously funded renovations. In March, the board approved the closure of half of the library system’s 24 branches after panicked county commissioners demanded the return of $2 million to plug a larger-than-expected deficit. The resulting public furor pushed the library to keep all its facilities open; however, to make it through the June 30 close of FY2010, officials had to lay off 120 people, reduce the salaries of everyone else, and cut service hours and programs.

“We’re going to go down fighting to preserve as much of the system as we can,” library Director Charles Brown said at the May 20 meeting, according to the May 21 Charlotte Observer. Explaining that the closure of three branches will save $2 million and consolidation of library maintenance and security with Mecklenburg County another $2.3 million, Brown said he would urge county commissioners at a June 3 hearing to restore $5 million to the library as part of a sustainability plan (PDF file) devised to keep the library system at 20 branches. (The plan also calls for Mecklenburg County municipalities to pitch in a collective $3 million.) The alternative, library board Chair Robin Branstrom asserts, would cost almost as much. “It’s going to cost the county $4.56 million to close 16 branches, when [commissioners] could give us $5 million more to keep us open,” she told the Observer.

The commission seemed destined to receive much more advice at a public budget hearing slated for May 27; a May 24 posting on the library’s Facebook wall noted that the speaker limit had already been reached.

A final vote on the Mecklenburg County budget is scheduled for June 15.

American Libraries, Mon, 05/24/2010 - 17:04