It’s going to be double jeopardy for those who hang onto library books past the due date, and new and expanded libraries planned for the county will be back under the magnifying glass for further review.
Library-users who return overdue books will be the ones paying to make up for the budget cuts to the library system.
Susan White, director of the Sequoyah Regional Library System, said that it’s very likely overdue fines will be doubled. Doubling the fines, which have not been increased since 1991, will offset the loss of about $104,000 Cherokee County will cut out of the system’s budget to balance its own 2010 budget.
White said overdue fees, at 10 cents per book per day, meant $108,277 in revenue to the library system last fiscal year. Doubling that number will more than offset of the 5 percent cut from the county, White said.
“That way no libraries will have to close, and there won’t have to be any layoffs,” she said
She said the library boards of trustees of Cherokee, Gilmer and Pickens counties already have approved the hike.
A final vote was to be held at the regional board of directors meeting Jan. 26, and, if approved, the fine hike would be implemented in mid-February.
White said library patrons have a choice as to whether to pay overdue fees – books may be kept out two weeks, and then may be renewed three extra times if there are no holds on them. Books may be renewed online, at the library’s Web site, www.sequoyahregionallibrary.org.
The more concerning thing about the county’s cut to library services, White said, is that the Georgia Board of Regents has a policy that if counties don’t at least match the previous years’ funding to their local libraries, the library systems possibly could lose state funding as well.
“In the last six months or so a waiver process has been set up,” White said. “The regional board will have to try get this waiver from the state. I hope it works, our state grants are three-quarters of a million dollars, and I’d hate to lose them.”
White said the construction of an addition to the R.T. Jones Library in Canton, as well as the construction of a new northeast Cherokee library near Macedonia are “done deals” as far as she’s concerned.
The sale of bonds for those projects was approved by last year’s Legislature. However, she admitted she’d heard rumblings that the state may go back on their decision to build the libraries.
Rep. Calvin Hill, R-Canton, vice-chair of the appropriations committee in the state House of Representatives, as well as newly appointed chairman of the new zero-based budgeting coordination subcommittee, said all bond sales will have to be reviewed in the upcoming budget process.
“We’re not necessarily going to cut the libraries,” Hill said. “But during the budget hearings all bonding is going to be reviewed because the state still has to pay debt service on those bonds.”
Hill said a decision will have to be made on several issues because of the tight budget, and he has to do what’s best for the state, even if it may mean taking heat locally.
