Privatization Showdown Moves to Osceola County, Florida
PrintAfter several months of rumors about the future of the Osceola Library System that serves Osceola County, Florida, a series of public hearings that began October 25 are seeking to explain why county officials are considering the outsourcing of library services to Germantown, Maryland–based privatization firm Library Systems and Services, Inc., and how LSSI plans to deliver the services sought. Officials seem to have an uphill battle on their hands to sway their constituents, however: The prospect of privatization has already pitted library supporters and the Florida Library Association against the county commission.
Osceola County leaders are seeking a means of plugging a three-year library deficit amounting to $3 million annually. The shortfall is due to falling property values that have significantly lowered tax revenues, according to the September 2 Orlando Sentinel, and no doubt exacerbated by a series of property-tax rollbacks that have been plaguing the fiscal stability of publicly funded services throughout the state.
As has occurred in many communities faced with library privatization, reaction was mixed when the media began reporting that Osceola County was weighing this option. “I’ve received more emails against it than in favor,” county commissioner John Quiñones said in the Sentinel. Commissioner Frank Attkisson reported receiving feedback favoring the idea, noting “My duty is to deliver the books to citizens free of charge. I don’t have a problem finding the cheapest, fastest, best way to do it.”
County officials initially anticipated an estimated cost savings of $2.5 million per year, only to tell the library board August 31 that LSSI had projected a more modest savings of $800,000 for the first year, totaling $4 million in savings over the length of a five-year contract instead of the county’s expectation of $13.1 million saved overall, Sentinel reported. At the commission’s request, County Manager Don Fisher asked LSSI to find more cost efficiencies; the firm responded with a proposal to cut the six-library system’s operating hours from 72 hours per week to 42 in order to achieve an annual budget reduction of $1.9-million, the newspaper reported September 29.
That news came two weeks after the abrupt dismissal on September 14 of 16 county employees, seven of whom were library workers—including all five branch managers—even as county officials created the new posts of library operations manager, administrative assistant, and library division manager. County Manager Doug Fisher explained that the decision was made based on “very careful and unbiased assessments of services provided versus services needed.” Two days earlier, came two days after the county commission authorized Fisher to negotiate with LSSI. “It appears the decision to outsource has already been made,” a September 16 Osceola News-Gazette editorial asserted, adding, “Someone will have to convince us that’s not the case.”
Florida Library Association President Gloria Colvin did not mince words either. In an open letter September 14, she stated (PDF file) that FLA “believes it is not in the best interest of the residents of Florida for publicly supported libraries to be managed by for-profit organizations,” noting that the county commission took its vote even though “this issue was not specifically on the meeting agenda and the action was not reported in the press.”
Colvin’s statement came about 18 months after FLA successfully defended a proposed state administrative rule against a challenge from LSSI. The for-profit firm had sought to strike an amendment to Florida’s library grant guidelines that made a public library system’s eligibility contingent on it being administered by a full-time librarian employed by the library’s governing body. At the time, LSSI had argued that the since-implemented rule would “substantially interfere with or preclude the management-outsourcing firm from entering into public-private partnerships with local governments.”
An October 13 Orlando Sentinel editorial offered advice to the Osceola County Commission as it ponders whether to sign on with LSSI: “What’s clear is that efficiency shouldn’t rely on closing libraries’ doors. Osceola should insist that private-side smarts deliver savings while preserving access and services… . In fact, officials should be looking for enhanced service, not just preserving the status quo. Otherwise, why bother going to the private sector?”
A decision is anticipated by year’s end. Should officials decide to outsource, the arrangement would begin in January.
American Libraries, Wed, 10/26/2011 - 11:34
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Comments
Cost-to-benefit ratio skewed
If it’s necessary to cut cost, sure they can do this without outsourcing the entire library operations. Any library manager could come up with the solution of reducing opening hours and staff or changing their collection development policy to save money etc. An external company couldn’t do more than the current management, only they’ll charge more because they want to make a profit. This clearly isn’t the best cost-to-benefit solution.
Need a wider view
The gov’t (and gov’t sponsored/funded public services) is not a business, should not be run like a business and does not provide the benefits that business provides. It is government, doing the dirty work of providing things that improve basic quality of life. That said, this idea has merits. But I remain a tad suspicious when this nuanced, complicated, multi-dimensional idea can get boiled down by Cmr. Attkisson with a statement about how the primary purpose of the library is to provide the public with free books. I can understand how he would think that is the primary purpose but of course it is not. The primary purpose of libraries is to provide access to information and knowledge to improve the community where the library is, books fall under that but is only one straw in the stack. A large part of it is a competent and warm staff, which privatization does not value.
Privatizing Libraries
Public libraries are not a revenue source, but rather the backbone of the American form of government by the people, for the people, and of the people. Information,in all forms, for free, to the American people is how an informed population can run a successful democracy. The public library should be governed and administered by members of the community it serves, not faceless profiteers who only answer, in secret, to whomever is in political power at the moment. Will a Christian fundamentalist on the county board then be able to ban Catholic Bibles and a Jewish Torah to place only King James’ version of the Bible? To only have an edited version of the U.S. Constitution that negagtes the enslavement of Africans slaves and Catholic Irish slaves in our history? How about a book burning, or having ICE going through library cardholder records? Dictatorial regimes always start out getting rid of the local access of government and information. And it isn’t even cost-effective to the taxpayers…
Re: PRIVATIZING LIBRARIES
Please spare us the histrionics, Alice. This should come down to a simple costs/benefits analysis. If the private firm can do the same job with a smaller budget, they should get the contract. If their proposal cuts services, makes fundamental changes to the collection (like your ridiculous examples), or otherwise produces an inferior product, that’s not doing the same job, now is it? As long as the contract is renewable at reasonable intervals the voting public still has the same “say” over what happens by pressuring their councilmen to approve or disapprove a continued relationship with the private company.
From my perspective as a government employee at a small, specialized library in the south east U.S., in some circumstances privatization would be the best thing that could happen. Every day I watch the handful of other full-time public employees here, each getting paid significantly more than I (and what I make is far and away more than I deserve for the labor I put in), sit on their fat asses and play computer games or read novels for a few hours — punctuated by smoking breaks — before each leaving early (not that the time cards reflect it, naturally), despite the fact that there is tons of basic, structural work waiting to be done. These are the laziest people I have ever met. They will walk a mile to avoid an inch of work. They desperately NEED to be audited and fired, including and especially the so-called boss. Do I sound disgruntled? You bet, but it’s not for any specific treatment I’ve received. I have been treated quite well for the most part. It’s because as an American tax-payer I am incensed that these folks are essentially stealing from the public coffers. YOUR tax money and MY tax money is funding their daily relaxation. Our facility barely hosts enough traffic to warrant even half the current staff. The situation is just ludicrous. Yet every time a council starts to raise questions in our budget review the cavalry comes out and rescues us with a public outcry. If only those “helping” us knew the real deal.
Now I’m not saying, and I do not think, that this example is typical; in fact I’m sure it’s not. But I’m illustrating that in some circumstances the idea of privatizing would be not only a smart move economically, but might also be a necessary step to reclaiming the true purpose of a library funded with public monies. And yes, I also realize that it could mean losing my own job. That’s not a pleasant thing to contemplate, but we are talking about a greater good here.
Re: Privatizing libraries
Sure, there is such a thing as a lazy public sector worker. There’s also such a thing as a stereotype. There are stereotypes about private sector workers too, FYI. Allow me to trot out a few of them for you: they do nothing but have meetings all day. Heated meetings. And then they break to play golf, on company time of course. And what is this about reading? As far as I know it has always been considered part of a librarian’s job to read. Would it be OK if they were checking their stocks on their BlackBerry? There’s another corporate stereotype for you. Librarians know about stereotypes. They are not reality. And you can’t use them as an argument for privatizing libraries.
As for “stealing from the public coffers”, what is this army of lobbyists doing in Washington, on corporations’ behalf? And if the private sector is so concerned about “the greater good” why don’t they start by bringing some jobs back from China?
There’s plenty of room in our society for both strong public and private sectors. What’s happening now is a hostile, agenda driven takeover. We all, as citizens, need to ask ourselves whether it is appropriate to have a privatized military, privatized prisons, privatized schools and libraries. You need more values in a society than just business values. I don’t save or invest my money from my “bloated” public sector librarian salary but spend it on books and DVDs for the library where I work because the budget is small. I don’t do it for a ‘return on investment’. I do it because I care about libraries, and libraries need new books.
Re: Privatizing libraries
Forest, if you are replying to me, you are way off target.
First, I did not offer any stereotypes; I gave anecdotal evidence of ACTUAL people I work with who have become a black hole into which taxpayer money disappears and from which no real service to those taxpayers emerges. I certainly can use my real-life experience to argue for the position that privatization is not automatically the worst choice.
Second, yes, reading is great. Does that mean that reading for personal pleasure should be done on the clock (and therefore on the taxpayers’ dime) by public employees when there is work waiting to be done? I shouldn’t really have to detail how the example in my previous post was meant to be interpreted … it’s self-explanatory except to those wishing to create a straw man.
Third, your stereotypes of the private sector — Okay, and so? What does that add to the discussion? If a private entity that exhibits such traits tries to take over your library, it doesn’t sound like they should or would prevail in convincing anybody.
Fourth, jobs in China? Lobbyists in Washington? Please, over-generalized macro arguments get us no closer to solutions to micro-instantiations. Have you any data to suggest that the private entity in the article employs people in China? If not, again it adds nothing. My experience with a private enterprise solution in my jurisdiction is that they consistently employ more local librarians and library science students than our public facility. In my agency, only half of the permanent staff have prior library experience (of which I am one, but the boss is not) and only one has a library degree (not me, and not the boss). Since I think that one of the problems many have with the idea of privatization, even if not stated explicitly, is the assumption that these MLS degree holding library staffers will lose out to unskilled, un-credentialled private employees, it seems important to highlight that this is not necessarily the case. As you can see, facts on the ground where I am do not support such a notion.
Fifth, I did not say the private sector was concerned about the greater good, I said I was. And to the extent that the service a general or specialized library gives to its community is a taxpayer funded service, we all should be, as we analyze whether or not the traditional public (operated) model is the best solution to the problem in any specific locale.
Again, it should come down to a costs/benefits analysis for that particular jurisdiction. Every individual who has something at stake in the argument will have their own spin on what those costs and benefits are, but so far what I’m seeing is a lot of knee-jerk, fear-induced response that smacks of political partisanship. If the libraries in your area are fantastically efficient and no private attempt to duplicate the level and quality of service for less cost could possibly succeed then that’s great. Huzzah for you. Most of us live in places where it’s not so clear cut. And in my specific case, a privatized solution would be a better deal for the taxpayers and library users by nearly any measure.
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