Home Brentwood Facing $4 Million Funding Shortfall, Brentwood City Council Agrees to Cut Library Funding

Facing $4 Million Funding Shortfall, Brentwood City Council Agrees to Cut Library Funding

by ECT

On Tuesday,  the Brentwood City Council unanimously agreed to stop funding extra library hours to help offset anticipated economic shortfalls in its budget due to COVID-19.

According to the city, they are anticipating General Fund reductions of $4 million resulting from COVID-19, with the largest impacts in sales tax, gas tax, and development and permit fees. By reducing the library by 21-hours of operation funded by the City, it will result in a cost savings of $319,200 in Fiscal Year 2020-21.

Currently, the County pays for 35-operational hours while the City of Brentwood funds 21-additional hours so the library can be open later on Saturdays.

If approved, staff will incorporate this into the draft operating budget for the May workshop where they will consider the funding reduction in 2021-22 as well.

Since March 20, the Brentwood Library has been closed, however, Contra Costa Library Services has been transitioning to provide digital and online services.  There is no timeline of when libraries will be open and it could last until a vaccine is available—meaning library services may be curtailed indefinitely.

According to City Manager Tim Ogden, with several cities discussing their budgets and possibly cutting additional library hours, the county librarian sought a response from cities by April 30. He explained that 13 of the 19 cities have extra hours and half of those are proposing to have cuts to the extra hours.

Ogden explained the average of these cities have just 10 extra hours, Brentwood has 21 extra hours, while saying other cities on average pay $100 per hour,  Brentwood is paying $300.

Currently, Danville and Orinda each fund 25 additional hours, and San Ramon funds 23. Walnut Creek has two libraries that each get funded an additional 21 hours a week—a total of 42 hours.

“Its probably one of the recommended cuts perhaps out of context with the full budget workshop coming back in May where we will be talking about other significant programs and proposed recommended cuts,” said Ogden. “Because this is due by the end of the month, we needed to rush to get this on the agenda.”

Ogden further explained that when the libraries reopen, without the 21-additional hours, it would move to a Tuesday through Saturday schedule and there will be no programs or facility rentals while the first phase of opening would be curbside distribution and limited people inside the library, there would be limited use inside until a vaccine in place.

The extra hours provide complete, consistent service every day of the week to make it easier for everyone to use the library.

Vice Mayor Joel Bryant highlighted his concerns about people having access to the internet and other resources, there is no impact right now because the library is not open. Going to the library is not even a physical option and they have a variety of other issues they need to look at from a financial standpoint.

“We have no idea what the end result of all the problems this COVID-19 shutdown has caused, how long it’s going to effect the city, we don’t know the damages it will do tax wise or community wise to our residents and businesses and we are really operating in the blind to our general fund,” said Bryant who noted while the budget looks healthy now, it could not be the case if it continued for a long period of time,” said Bryant.

He also shared that just last week, they provided $50k to families for food but questioned how many more dollars may be needed to keep families living, fed, protected and they did not know how long that will be while relying on diminishing funds.

“We are already operating with a $4 million deficit and that money has to be found somewhere where we can maintain the same level of quality of life and same level of responsiveness from our police department, parks and recreation and everything our residents expect. We are going to have to find $4 million to keep status quo going,” said Bryant.

He continued.

“Our number one responsibility is to keep our residents safe, keep our community safe, and we are going to have to be very careful in how we spend our funds… nobody wants to reduce hours of a library, but if I have to choose funds available to feed our elderly or our residents in combination with the food bank, or having someone have 21-hours of access, that is an easy decision to me because I do not know what the future holds, I am going to be more conservative with these financial decisions,” stated Bryant.

Councilwoman Karen Rarey agreed with “everything” Vice Mayor Bryant said noting they already put a freeze on hiring and it will be months until they determine the financial fallout from COVID-19 saying they needed to conservative.

Councilman Johnny Rodriquez called a “ditto” to comments made by Bryant and Rarey and urged the council to be conservative on decisions they make on the budget.

Councilmember Claudette Staton was in agreement that they had to make a difficult decision but was a business decision when they have to find $4 million.

Mayor Bob Taylor was in agreement with his fellow council.

The council then voted 5-0 in support to the lease agreement that reduces library hours but opted to bring it back for review in January 2021.

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3 comments

Happy Apr 29, 2020 - 8:06 am

They should have cut their own payroll 🙁

Diana klinger Apr 29, 2020 - 1:44 pm

They could open up permits, they don’t have to be full staff. We are waiting to give you money

LovableCurmudgeon May 1, 2020 - 6:07 am

First thing they all do is cut funding to the most important resource available to every citizen. The library. The one thing in a community that provides an opportunity for every citizen to be literate and educated. Very sad

Comments are closed.