Two hundred-twenty seven million dollars...That's how much money Governor Strickland is proposing to cut from the state's public library fund. "This has a reverberating impact on our community that frankly, it scares me," Mahoning County Library Director Carlton Sears said.
Bottom line, the proposal leaves all libraries in Mahoning and Trumbull Counties with about half of its state funds. "What these cuts would do would be very devastating to our services that we offer, and it would also dismantle a very fine public library," McKinley Memorial Public Library Director Pat Finan said.
Officials predict the McKinley Memorial Library in Niles and the Warren Library could get by by cutting hours and services, but other branches like Girard, Newton Falls, Hubbard and Kinsman say by 2010, they'd have to close. "This cut would do to us, we'd be down under $400,000. There's no way we'd be able to keep going and provide services to the community," Girard Public Library Director Rose Ann Lubert said.
In Mahoning County, the situation gets a little worse. Officials are already saying they'd have to close many of its branches immediately. "We would be left with enough money to operate the Main library and Boardman, Poland or Austintown but not all three. And that is every other library in the county closing. I can't really see doing that, but that's to illustrate the magnitude," Sears said.
Now the libraries are depending on your input. "Contact your legislators. Let them know you need your libraries. You need the access to internet and materials and so forth," Warren-Trumbull County Public Library Director James Wilkins said.
Both Mahoning and Trumbull county websites have forms you can email to your representatives at:
Mahoning County Public Library System
Warren-Trumbull County Public Library System
A decision is expected by June 30.
