West Virginia Legislature Tries to Address Library Funding Snag

-- Library Journal, 03/07/2007

The West Virginia Legislature is trying to address a funding snag that has put nine county libraries in funding jeopardy—but the final resolution is unclear. Libraries serving cities like Charleston and Wheeling have relied for years on laws requiring boards of education to help fund up to one third of their budgets. The state Supreme Court last year, in response to a challenge from the Kanawha County Board of Education, called the law unconstitutional. That means a loss more than $2.2 million a year in Kanawha County, which includes Charleston. With the new fiscal year beginning July 1, libraries have asked for legislative relief. Senate Bill 541 would allow the boards of education in each of the nine affected counties to decide whether to keep funding libraries or to allow for a special levy election for library funding.

The solution—still pending in the House of Delegates—has unnerved some librarians, since the levies might be iffy. "It appears that the Senate bill goes beyond what the court requires, and that will instantly place what has been stable funds for Kanawha County libraries into a big question mark," J.D. Waggoner, the West Virginia Library Commission's executive director, told the Sunday Gazette-Mail. Kanawha County library director Linda Wright said that the legislative tinkering, as part of a revamped school funding formula, could make libraries vulnerable. "It invites revisiting," she told the newspaper. " Other changes could put us at further risk."