Operating County Libraries Will Cost Almost $4.4M | Government And Politics

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed to spend just about $4.4 million to operate the general public library process next fiscal yr and expanded the selection of library zones to 5.

The full contains $167,369 in unallocated cash from hashish tax revenues and a exclusive small library fund.

Supervisors authorized the settlement with five cities for their municipal libraries to administer eight county branch libraries without having the typical dialogue about developing a secure ongoing revenue supply for library functions that doesn’t contain a General Fund contribution.

Even so, a person supervisor questioned giving money to a jurisdiction that no for a longer time participates in a elements sharing program.

For 50 decades, the county has contracted with metropolitan areas for administration of county branch libraries, most not too long ago in four assistance zones very last accredited in 2019.

It is a procedure that is distinctive amongst all of California’s counties and rarely located wherever in other states.

Santa Maria Public Library administers department libraries in Guadalupe, Orcutt, Los Alamos and Cuyama Lompoc Public Library administers the Vandenberg Village department Goleta Valley Library administers Buellton and Solvang department libraries and Santa Barbara Community Library has administered the Montecito and Carpinteria branches.

But the state a short while ago licensed the Carpinteria department as a municipal library, so supervisors agreed to carve out a fifth library zone for the town from Zone 1.

Despite the fact that there is no department library for Carpinteria to administer, it will provide library providers to citizens of the encompassing unincorporated county region.

Funding approved by the board totals a small around $1.5 million for Zone 3, consisting of Santa Maria Community Library and its department libraries virtually $1.1 million for Zone 4, which features Goleta Valley Library and its branches and $524,466 for Zone 2, which encompasses Lompoc and its department library.

Zone 1, which involves Santa Barbara and its branch, will receive just about $1.2 million, and Zone 5, which encompasses Carpinteria, is allocated $147,134.

Recently, the San Luis Obispo County library method and Santa Barbara Public Library pulled out of the Black Gold Cooperative Library Procedure that will allow patrons to request textbooks and other products from libraries exterior of their area.

That prompted a problem from 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson about funding the Santa Barbara library.

“It would seem like we present this dollars regionally, then we have one particular jurisdiction that does not want to be portion of the system,” Nelson stated.

But 1st District Supervisor Das Williams famous that the Black Gold method is only one particular of the many sections of the county’s library expert services, and funding has been furnished to other libraries that chose not to participate in one aspect.

Broken down by county branches, funding accredited for 2022-23 includes: