In today’s Daily Progress, Sean Tubbs writes that Scottsville Board of Supervisors member Lindsay Dorrier says that Jefferson Madison Regional Library can’t close the Scottsville branch. The county attorney says that their contract with JMRL indicates that funding is proportional, so if they shut down Scottsville, they lose all of the funding for that branch and still have to take a 5% cut for the remaining locations. The library’s Board of Trustees disagrees, saying that the contract indicates that the money is for all of Albemarle’s branches, and that JMRL isn’t obliged to use that money for a Scottsville location.
It looks to me like section 4 of the agreement governs this. The only applicable bit that I can find is part b, which says that the “costs shall be allocated…in direct proportion to their respective shares of the total circulation,” which doesn’t seem to imply any obligation to maintain a particular branch. And Section 6 specifies that “[t]he Regional Library Board shall determine hours and places of library service.” But surely the county attorney is finding this someplace in this agreement—can anybody find it?
I think Dorrier – like Snow – is talking out his butt.
I think the library knows it’s contract (perhaps better than the supervisors) and if the supervisors insist on their interpretation – then the library might decide to close the Crozet Branch as well to pay any legal costs this disagreement about the contract interpretation might bring about.
And as much as I’d hate to lose a library in the system- I think the Library Board has the right idea with regards to their actions.
Normally I would agree Dorrier was flapping his gums. But the County Administrator stated “it was unfortunate that this came out” on a TV interview the other day. Why was it unfortunate? What was the big secret? What else does he know that would be “unfortunate” if it came to light? Maybe we need a little “Albemarle Sunlight” in addition to the Richmond Sunlight….
The bottom line is Lindsay Dorrier doesn’t want the Scottsville branch to close. He hopes the Supes will restore level funding but he is also swallowing the County Attorney’s line that the Board can’t close a branch. I think he is just trying to make sure it stays open, and may not be doing any fact-checking of his own.
I have been over the Regional Agreement MANY times and I don’t see where specifically closing a branch is prohibited, or where such action i sup to the jurisdiction in which the branch is located.
I’m not a lawyer but I kind of doubt the County’s lawyers have got this completely wrong. If the JMRL wants a fight with the BOS over Scottsville they will lose badly.
The BOS protection of Scottsville is both good policy and good politics. Since JMRL has to rely on the “kindness of strangers”, with no money of their own the stance seems futile.
How is this whole Scottsville imbroglio NOT a NIMBY-esque bit of hypocrisy? “Okay, public services, you’re going to have to tighten your belts and be more efficient and have the backbone to make difficult budgetary choices because we’re going to cut the funding we give you (even though the other localities that contribute to JMRL are not cutting their funding).” “WHAT? You did exactly what we told you to do and it resulted in a cut that inconveniences MY constituents, the people I depend on for votes, and they are now complaining to ME???? That’s not what I meant when I said tighten your belts and be more efficient and have some backbone!”
I love JMRL and I think it is very sad that closing any library is even something we can seriously consider. I believe strongly that draconian cuts to the ACPS are almost tragic. If the world worked the way I think it should the BOS would raise the property tax rate to whatever level (.85 ?)would eliminate the need for drastic cuts in our community services.
BUT, the voters in a majority of AC districts, including Scottsville, have elected a BOS with a conservative, keep taxes low, majority. And elections have consequences.
I am mostly on the side of the JMRL in this struggle with the county. However, I am not sure that reducing hours should be something which the JMRL board is completely unwilling to consider. Many restaurants and museums are closed in this area on Mondays and I wonder if folks would not be able to adjust if this were true of some library branches as well. It seems like a better option to me than closing branches. Does anyone remember when library hours were reduced during a tight period in the 90’s? I think that is how we got the present Northside/Gordon branch schedules.
Understand, though, that the peril of that is losing employees who require full-time employment. Librarians aren’t exactly a dime a dozen, and they’ve got mortgages to pay like everybody else. Scale back their hours below full-time, and then they lose benefits (like health insurance), too. If their income isn’t enough to pay their bills, they’re going to leave, and JMRL is going to be trying to persuade somebody with a library sciences degree to take a part-time job in a municipality that cuts librarians’ hours every single year. Who wants that job?
The Scottsville location is closed on Sunday, and on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, they’re only open from 9:00 – 5:00, which is to say during hours so limited that most people can’t visit. Northside is closed on Sundays all summer, and only open for seven hours on Friday and Saturday. Monday and Tuesday they don’t open until noon. Crozet is only open after 1:00 on Monday and Tuesday, only open from 9:00 – 5:00 for the rest of the week, and is closed on Sunday.
More details on the “Dorrier plan” are available on a website that was set up to support the Scottsville Library. I had not seen this information when I filed my story, but think interested folks should know about it.
More than likely, Dorrier is referring to
“Policy: Section 1.24
AMENDED REGIONAL LIBRARY AGREEMENT – 1991
The Regional Library Board will, after each year’s audit, return to each jurisdiction its share of any carryover funds in excess of those amounts necessary to fund the reserve fund. The return of such funds to each locality will be prorated on the same basis in which they contributed the costs. The Board may formally request uses for these returned carryover funds”.
So, closing the Scottsville library will create carryover funds. Because Albemarle’s portion will be less than it was before. And that prorated amount needs to be set aside in the event the Albemarle’s BOS decides to not let them keep it. The library can ask for these funds from Albemarle but, they are not guaranteed to receive them.
Welcome to the wacky world of Republican thinking. Cut taxes but don’t cut any services. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. But lying to the gullible Fox News viewers seem easier than actually governing.
I’m glad you spotted that, Steve—that may be the root of it. But I still don’t quite understand. That wouldn’t indicate that Albemarle gets to withhold funding, but instead that any money not used up from Albemarle book-borrowing costs has to be returned. Presumably, a certain portion of the Scottsville demand won’t evaporate, but will instead result in books being checked out at other branches, meaning that not all of the money for the Scottsville branch would be returned to the county.
Does that sound right?
OK, I get why the JMRL says they get to keep the funds, even if they close S’ville. It’s because the current budget and the portions due from each locality is based on the previous two years of circulation. However, any locality can withdrawn at anytime. So, I believe that JMRL is gambling that Albemarle will not withdraw from the agreement. My take is that Albemarle will win out, the S’ville branch will not closed and the JMRL will actually have to cut administrative costs and other expenses. Instead of trying to push the problem on to Albemarle.
Actually, I think the “Dorrier Plan” that Sean referred to above would have the board dropping their funding cut to JMRL.
The administration is awfully lean, I’d say unfairly so. For instance, the head of JMRL does double-duty as the head of the main branch, because he happens to have his office there. As I understand the per-county membership structure, it to me that Charlottesville is getting off awfully cheap by not having to fund a branch manager. This has been the case for years and years, and JMRL has just quietly made it work the entire time, without complaint.
BTW, for folks who are interested, here’s the library’s budget.
To branch out (no pun intended) the discussion into some new areas, I’ll give my take.
I agree with Waldo that the library appears to be lean. I’ve used the Crozet library, and I see a staff that is underpaid. Cutting hours would exacerbate the situation for them. In my experience, the best quality of Crozet’s branch is the people who are quickly becoming the pawns in this showdown (and I direct that statement at the JMRL board as well as the county staff). The branch manager in Crozet has been an absolute gem: a 9.999 in the Dewey Decimal scale.
Both sides in this “showdown” are risking something. I don’t think Albemarle has made their case effectively. After watching county officials for many years, this does not surprise me.
As I read the budget, the risk for the JMRL is the possibility that Albemarle could decide to opt out of the system. Given the way the budget is structured, Albemarle is putting in the majority of funds. Yet much of the resource is centered away from its population. Albemarle could fund three incredibly richly-staffed, well-paid branches if it opted out, and possibly a fourth in the Earlysville area. Right now, Albemarle is putting in a majority of funds for one branch and two bare-bones, third-world satellites. If I were Albemarle, I’d wake up the JMRL (and the public) to that fact. Albemarle’s population is growing, but the library is not shifting its resources to be more convenient to that growth.
But, there is a risk of a move to independence by Albemarle. The short term capital costs for such a transition are prohibitive. Libraries build circulating materials over time, something Albemarle cannot do quickly in these budget-strapped times. And, many Albemarle residents use Charlottesville branches, even if they would prefer to have better branches closer to home. Such a move would understandably not sit well with Charlottesville, which is getting two terrific branches (and uses the Northridge a great deal, so three) for far less money than Albemarle gets one branch and two bare-bones satellites. Charlottesville could survive the transition even less.
The new Crozet library should change the budget for that resource immensely. The size of the building under plans to be constructed in Crozet cannot nearly be manned by the current staff, not to mention overhead costs. The Crozet branch recently lost a position that, to my knowledge, is not being refilled. That loss has not been mentioned.
Sadly, many residents don’t have the ability to read newspaper articles from a political perspective: what reaction is this government official/group trying to get from me, and is it justified? The JMRL board did a good job with their media work, and most residents blamed the BOS for the lack of funding at Crozet and Scottsville. Releasing a budget that is easy to read also helped them, IMHO. The school board has generated the same response by publicizing cuts that directly hit the classroom.
Incidentally, the strategies of the JMRL and the county school board seem very similar — put some painful cuts in highly used/visible places of the board’s constituents and count on public outrage to restore some funds. However, I see the JMRL board and the county school board differently. From what I have seen, the JMRL has continued to operate fairly lean, and they have done well with little.
Conversely, I have been concerned that the county school board has recently (last 10 years) tilted to a more administrative orgy focused on management ,support staff, administrators etc. I wasn’t impressed with media work in recent years on their increased enthusiasm for “support” staff and education trends.
Given that my experience with educational administrators and trendy educational “thought” has not impressed me, I would prefer resources to go into lowering classroom size, raising teacher pay, and allowing teachers to teach a difficult liberal arts curriculum unmolested. Perhaps this is just a difference in philosophy. Even if your only mindset is to focus on restoring funds, it pays to be realistic, and focus on making sure any possible cuts are handled in the best way.
Crozet Resident, your new library isn’t going to be built for a very long time. If they start in the next 5-10 years I will be surprised. Opting out is JMRL’s nightmare and probably the end of them. I think the JMRL has overplayed their hand. They need Albemarle more than Albemarle needs them. I think it’s arrogant to take the county’s money and then say “Oh thanks for 95% of the budget but we are going to shut down one of your branches”.
I do agree with your thoughts on the schools and how they can be better funded.
Dorrier is such a fucking asshole.
I like the points that “Crozet Resident” made.
If that is true then I would say – GO For IT!
What really strikes me about your comment is how long it’s been since I’ve even had to deal with this kind of thing. The social norms are so clear here that people very rarely engage in this kind of bomb-throwing. So I’m going to assume that you’re new here, and don’t know how things work, and I’ll try and be calm in my response.
Not is your comment rude (obviously), but it’s rude outside of the style of discourse here, which is to say that it’s ineffective. If Dorrier had just slapped a baby, for instance, this might be a case of some well-deserved venting. Or if he’d proposed something really egregious (“raise taxes by 50%!”), and we’d had a long discussion here that became more heated as it became more clear that he had, say, a conflict of interest, you might be speaking for those inclined to be more restrained. Instead, though, you just drop the F-bomb in the middle of an otherwise calm and informative discussion, meaning that folks who might be sympathetic towards your viewpoint on Dorrier instead find themselves shocked by your sentiment and inclined to disagree with you. Basically you’re undermining your own argument here (such as it is).
Funny, my complaint really boils down to less “that’s rude” than “that’s really ineffective.” Sometimes an appropriate response to egregious behavior on the part of a politician is the F-bomb. But this isn’t even vaguely such a case or, if it is, you haven’t demonstrated that to be so.
Albemarle pays the most because it uses the most:
“These costs are allocated to the City of Charlottesville and Albemarle County in direct proportion to their respective shares of circulation at the Central, Gordon Avenue, and Northside libraries.”
Albemarle County residents are responsible for 60% of central library circulation, 55% of Gordon Ave circulation, and 85% of Northside circulation. In other words, county residents account for over half of the circulation at the two city locations.
Should Albemarle take its marbles and go home, Albemarle county residents should no longer enjoy JMRL library cards. I’m really tired of big consumers demanding big discounts just because they’re big and have more marbles. Don’t care if it’s health insurance companies paying less than I do for the same service or Walmart demanding discounts from their suppliers or the County demanding this library discount. It’s the same bullying tactics that, in the end, some one else has to pay for.
“The Scottsville location is closed on Sunday, and on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, they’re only open from 9:00 – 5:00, which is to say during hours so limited that most people can’t visit.” It sounds that this branch is opern mainly to keep current staff employed.
It sounds this gentleman is wearing two hats which seems to be working quite well. I would hesitate to suggest that each title requires a full time employee. What comes to mind as an example is a classroom teach (full time) can also serve as the football coach. She is simply paid more, which I’m certain she appreciates and would probably fight hard if someone tried to take the coaching duties. I’m assuming that the head is also paid more than a branch manager (?).
The fact that a thing is happening does not mean that it is happening well. My glove box latch is stuck shut. I’ve got to jimmy it open with a coat hanger and fix the latch, but I haven’t gotten around to it because, hey, “it seems to be working quite well,” in the sense that I haven’t needed anything in my glove box. But I got pulled over for speeding on Saturday. (First time I’ve ever been pulled over, since I just don’t speed.) Then things weren’t working quite so well, from either the police officer’s perspective or my own.
Doing stuff badly can work well until it stops. Or it can work in the sense that terrible things aren’t happening, but that doesn’t mean that it’s “working” in any reasonable sense of the word.
Waldo, are you saying he’s not doing as good of a job as he wouldker akng some other complain? Personally, I think he’s enjoying the higher salary.
Anybody who is doing too much work is either going to have their work suffer or they’re going to get burned out. I don’t know why he’d get a higher salary—it’s not like you get to draw two paychecks just because you do a lot of work. :)
It’s common practice when an employee has a significant amount of responsiblity added to his job description he will get and increase in salary. For example, secretaries become office manager or bookkeeper becomes a financial officer. When Aubrey Watts took on some of Gary O’Connell’s duties as city manager his salry increased and he was temporarily called Deputy City Manager and supervised even the tow assistant city managers.
The concept of zero-based budgeting is too seldom used by government.
ZBB means people examine, in this case, how the library’s public could be served if the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library (JMRL)lost all funding for its Charlottesville-Albemarle branches.
All of them, even the main library and the Gordon Avenue branch.
How much of the reading public workload would be taken over by the schools, if all the libraries closed and the library budget was parceled to each school to improve its library?
Aren’t school libraries run by people trained and qualified to run libraries?
There are far more school libraries than branch libraries in the city and county, and the schools are more conveniently located. In fact they are in the neighborhoods, usually walking distance, a big deal consideration today.
ZBB makes us realize that it’s not a choice of JMRL or nothing. We have a giant UVa library open to the community, and an unending internet library.
Why not take the Market Street main branch and convert it to the downtown community Mont Ave center, with scores of PCs serving as internet terminals.
Take what they are already doing and expand it. Make that building a cerebral recreation center for the homeless, seniors, people between jobs. tourists and visitors.
Keep the irreplaceable reference collections the downtown JMRL has that are uniquely theirs, and the collections that relate to Charlottesville.
Take those former library buildings in Crozet, Scottsville, and Northside, fumigate them, (I once worked in a library) and use them for federal gov programs being funded to benefit this year’s favored minorities.
Helping migrant workers or Haitian orphans or whomever is a service to humanity, makes great headlines, and in no time JMRL will be as passe as Victory Shoes.
I’d say that’s an example of thinking outside the books.
It just kills me that our wonderful library system is suddenly seen as the epitome of a wasteful government program that only benefits special interests.
UVA’s libraries are for UVA students, not for the public. While it’s nice that we get to use it, students get to (for instance) recall books at any time, requiring that they’re returned within 72 hours (IIRC) by whoever has them. There are, of course, virtually no children’s books. They’re very academic. Nobody with any sense would send a child younger than 12 into Alderman’s stacks, at least if they ever wanted to see their child again. And, most important, UVA lacks the capacity to actually deal with thousands of people seeking library cards, loaning books to them, fining them when they’re late, etc. That’s all done via UVA’s own network, relies on the honor code, etc. Your solution here is a bit like suggesting that we stop feeding the hungry because, hey, Whole Foods offers samples. True, but it doesn’t scale, does it?
Um. This has not been thought through the least. School libraries are tiny. They are in use all day, and I imagine nobody wants adults wandering into school libraries when kids are in class there. The books are appropriate for students, not for adults, and either changing that or not changing that would result in great anger from one constituency or another.
These are only good ideas for the first quarter of a second after hearing them.
It’s fascinating to see people suggesting public libraries are a bad idea and a waste of taxpayer money. Do you really think that? Really? Public libraries are a very tangible result of taxes.
For those suggesting they just go away … have you been to one recently? They aren’t exactly posh. They scrape by. Perhaps justifiably so, but it’s hard to imagine anyone could back up an argument that they waste the money they are given.
Free books. To anyone. Anytime. Just bring them back and get more. How can you be against that?
Plenty of people don’t want to feed or house the homeless. They should buy their own food like me! They should pay rent like me!
But you won’t let them borrow free books on your dime? It’s not like giving a guy $5 on the street and you assume he buys beer. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. With the library, you’re just giving the guy books.
For Pete’s sake, give them a book! And put those books in a library they have a reasonable chance of physically getting to.
@FlyingRoadstar, Oh the drama over a 5% cut.
Personally, I think this community can up with the extra $244k (I think it is the amount) by gifts to the JMRL’s Firends. It really doesn’t take that much in gifts from people. A couple just gave Greene County $50k to help with budget shortfalls.
How things are done now can change tomorrow, just like they changed from what was done yesterday.
What school libraries are today does not dictate or even suggest what they would be if government expanded their approach, added to their function, size, inter-library tools, staff, access.
That calls for imagination, not “It’s impossible because we aren’t set up for that.”
I was lucky to have an alternative education, one that urged me to think about creative problem solving. That’s a different path from being unable to envision change.
Don’t like combining the library with the schools? Come up with something else sustainable.
Well, sure, I’ve got a great idea. There are a handful of buildings around Charlottesville and Albemarle. They’ve been constructed for the purpose of holding books (in fact, they’re lined with bookshelves). Conveniently located relative to the population, they are also designed in such a way as to provide private reading space, some larger public rooms, space for reference desks, a checkout desk, returns, etc. Some of them even have slots built into the walls for returning books after hours and loading docks for receiving shipments of books.
“Libraries,” we call them. They’re really quite ideal!
Community libraries in Virginia have been half-starved forever, and it just gets worse.
If the present library funding structure were sustainable, Scottsville wouldn’t be under attack, and this thread wouldn’t exist.
Apologies. I expected too much from a blog.
I’ve got an idea.
Let’s tag “County of Residence” to the library card. And then each time that card gets used have a notation made somewhere regarding cumulative total usage by County/per branch. Then if the usage was more than- lets say 3 to 5 percent- by Residents from a County “other than” where the library is Geographically located… then that County would be obligated to increase funding to the library foundation by that percentage.
Meaning if you found that 50 percent of the users of the Scottsville Library lived in Fluvanna and Buckingham,… then those Counties should increase their funding accordingly.
Just my 2 cents.
Here is a link to an interesting discussion about the financial effect of cutting out the bookmobile: http://scottsvillereads.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/support-the-dorrier-plan/
It’s equally accurate to say that the present school funding structure isn’t looking sustainable and that local school funding is under attack. But that shouldn’t cause a reasonable individual to conclude that we should shut down the school system. (And if we did, where would we put our new libraries? ;) The fact that there’s a 5% cut proposed to the libraries hardly makes their funding structure unsustainable—it just means that, at worst, the least-used branch will have to be closed, thus neutralizing this funding problem. And that’s actually the opposite of unsustainable!
That’s such a great idea that JMRL is already handling funding in just that manner. :) But…
Since neither Fluvanna nor Buckingham are part of the JMRL system, there’s no mechanism by which they can be compelled to contribute. They don’t pay a cent right now, and they’d be legally in the right to say that they’ve got their own library systems and don’t care to fund Albemarle’s. But I think that morally they probably ought to provide funding to JMRL at about the same per-user cost that they fund their own libraries based on the rate at which their citizens patronize it. In this economic climate, though, it might be tough to convince them of that. :)
@Waldo: if Fluvanna and Buckingham aren’t part of JMRL, then how can residents of those counties get JMRL cards? It’s been a long time since I got my card, but I seem to recall having to show proof of identity and address, so it’s not like it would be hard to prevent Fluvanna/Buckingham folks from getting JMRL cards.
It seems fair that Fluvanna and Buckingham kick in to help the JMRL serve their residents . If those counties won’t do it, perhaps access an “non-resident user fee” (similar to city rec offerings)for library card holders from outside of the regional library systems intended service area.
Part of the challenge in charging residents of other counties is that those other counties don’t charge JMRL residents. Many Albemarle County citizens in Afton use the Waynesboro Library, for example. Libraries in the Commonwealth have had a tacit understanding for some years now that access is open and free to all Virginia residents.
It may be time to re-thinkn this understanding.
RE: Why Fluvanna and Buckingham residents are allowed JMRL library cards:
From JMRL’s POlicy manual (Section 4.221) http://www.jmrl.org/policy/section4-221.pdf
1. All residents of and/or real property owners in the Commonwealth of Virginia are
eligible to obtain free library cards.
Library cards for residents of the area served by the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library
(Charlottesville, Albemarle, Greene, Nelson, and Louisa) will be renewable every three
(3) years.
Library cards for residents not in the area will be designated as OA cards (out of area).
2. Any non-resident who teaches in or attends school in the State of Virginia is eligible
to obtain a free library card.
3. An individual not meeting any of the above criteria may purchase a library card for
the fee specified on the Card Registration Form.
4. Visitors and/or persons who, for whatever reason, are not eligible for a library card
may request a guest pass or a temporary Computer Access Only card.
5. Institutional cards are not issued.
There are no age requirements for obtaining a library card; however, unfiltered Internet
access is granted on the basis of patron’s date of birth as stated on Jefferson-Madison
Regional Library’s Card Registration Form. Materials charged out to minors are considered to be the responsibility of parents or guardians. Failure to return materials or to pay fines or fees results in loss of borrowing privileges.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the general policy in all Virginia Public Libraries. Residents are issued free cards – after all, our taxes help keep them open.
And a literate population is a good thing regardless of which side of the county line you call home.
Just curious-anyone know how to access data about “out of area” usage of JMRL? And local resident and “out of area ” usage of Fluvanna and Buckingham library systems?