LIVINGSTON — Park County commissioners are considering cutting approximately $180,000 from the Livingston Park County Public Library budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
That amount is 24% of the library’s county budget and 19% of the library’s budget overall.
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Library director Mitch Grady told MTN the library has funds reserved in case the county makes the budget cuts. The library will also continue to use voted mills, which bring the year’s budget to about $575,000.
“We do have sufficient reserves that if the full cuts went through this fiscal year, we would be able to cover everything as is,” said Grady. “I tried to tell staff that and reassure them that it's not panic time yet.”
However, Grady said the library could suffer significant losses if the proposed cuts remain.
“You can't just decide not to turn on the heat for the air conditioning all year... so it would involve cutting staff,” said Grady.
He said staff layoffs would likely result in cuts to library hours and programs.
“Especially the kids programs... there'll be a real shame to have to cut anything like that,” said Grady. “A little bit under half of the number of books that get checked out of the library are kids’ books.”
Several from the community shared concerns about the proposed cuts at the Park County commissioners meeting Monday morning.
“It was a very emotional meeting this morning about reading and kids and what libraries do worldwide,” Park County commissioner Mike Story told MTN. “And they are great. I understand.”
Even though Story said he does not want to make the cuts, he said there is not a lot of room in the county’s budget due to rising costs.
“We had nine percent inflation, and the counties are only allowed to raise two and a half percent for inflation,” he said. “A road grader went from two hundred thousand dollars to a half a million dollars.”
Story told MTN it is an issue many rural communities are facing.
“It's across the state. You can ask almost any county commissioner,” said Story. “When you start putting all this together and trying to run the county the same way you've been doing it, you're gonna shortfall.”
Story told MTN the commissioners plan to release a full proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year Thursday. The public will have two weeks to comment on it before the budget is finalized.
“We'll have to do the hard cuts,” said Story.
