Budget News Gets Brighter
By Walter Minkel -- School Library Journal, 8/1/2004
Amid all the budget cuts and layoffs of recent years, some public libraries and media centers are starting to report good news. The West Contra Costa Unified School District in California's San Francisco Bay Area, for example, had all of its library funds restored in June, thanks to voter approval of a parcel tax.
Months ago, it looked almost certain that the district's 36 media specialists and their assistants would lose their jobs to save $2 million ("Contra Costa to Fold School Libraries," May 2004, p. 18).
Meanwhile, the County of Los Angeles Public Library may have $8.8 million restored, pending the passage of a final budget by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Without the money, the library system would be forced to close 16 branches and a bookmobile and lay off its staff at those locations.
On the East Coast, the New York City Council voted June 21 to restore $4.1 million to the Queens Borough Public Library, which means the system can now keep all of its 63 branches open at least five days a week. The council also restored an additional $10 million to the city's three library systems—Queens Borough Public Library, New York Public Library, and Brooklyn Public Library. All three had suffered from severe budget cuts since 2002 that left them in the grips of a hiring freeze.
