The Kossuth County Board of Supervisors met with a standing room only audience of librarians and residents of the county on Monday night. The board is proposing a 69% cut in funding to all county libraries in order to meet budgetary requirements for the next fiscal year.
Lanny Mitchell is the Director of the Wesley Public Library. She spoke first at the meeting outlining that the action of the board would mean the death knell for at least four of the county libraries. She challenged the board on where the budget figures were coming from and why were these cuts being made. Chairman Kyle Stecker explained it this way.
The libraries would receive $85,000 which would have to be distributed evenly among all of the county libraries. This amounts to $7,083 per library in the county. Mitchell tried to clarify with Stecker what the actual cut in funding would be.
Mitchell made it clear that the libraries could not survive on these cuts.
Many of the area cities have already submitted their fiscal year budgets for next year, and now a new burden falls on them according to Mitchell.
Kossuth County Vice Chair Supervisor Carter Nath tried to clarify that even cities are now strapped by state legislation.
Amber Harris is the LuVerne Public Library Director. She demonstrated the concerns of a small community library that now may face closure if the current cuts are implemented.
Algona Mayor Rick Murphy along with other city officials from around the county were present at the meeting. Each asked the question of why the libraries were being hit so hard in funding cuts. If city budgets were already done, Murphy wanted to know when the county made the decision to make the substantial cuts considering that this is now mid-April.
County supervisors continued to dodge the question citing only state mandates in funding parameters.
