Seminole branches restore lost services
Several mornings each week, Thomas Swartz parks himself in a quiet corner of the Seminole County Library in Casselberry with his books and papers as he works on his craft.
“If I stay home, I get distracted too easily,” said Swartz, 74, who writes historical fiction and crime novels.
He said he was pleased to learn he soon will be able to spend an extra day a week at his favorite library. Thanks to a resurgent economy, Seminole plans to return to operating all five of its branch libraries seven days a week in January.
When the economy tanked eight years ago, Seminole was forced to make drastic cuts to its library system by closing branches one day a week, laying off 25 percent of staff, scaling back storytime reading sessions for children and snipping $1.5 million from the budget.
Libraries across Central Florida and the state also faced reduced budgets in 2008 when the Great Recession hit.
Now that counties find themselves with rising revenues from
higher tax rolls spurred by economic growth, library systems are restoring services and relaunching projects that were put on hold during leaner times.
“I can tell you that this very good news to many of our residents. They’ve been waiting for the library to come back,” said Christine Patten, Seminole’s library services director. “When we made the cuts, many of our residents were unhappy. They called us and said: ‘We love our libraries. Why did you reduce the days of my library?’ ”
The Orange library system, for example, cut back on several maintenance services, including landscaping, window washing and replacing worn furniture during the economic downturn. Several vacant positions also were left open and other jobs shifted staff to different positions.
Buoyed by better times, Orange last year opened the new Chickasaw library, its largest branch.
The existing building for the new branch was acquired by the library system in 2006 for $2.5 million. But the $3.4 million renovation project to turn it into a library was put on hold until 2014 because of the economic downturn.
The Orange library system also is restoring the fourth floor of the downtown Orlando library by adding new flooring and upgrading equipment. The fourth floor is expected to reopen in early October.
“Those are things that would not have happened during the recession,” said Erin Sullivan, public-relations administrator for Orange libraries.
The Orange library budget for next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, is planned for $41.2 million, a 7.3 percent increase from this fiscal year.
But in Lake County, a more modest increase of nearly 2 percent is proposed from the current $3.6 million budget. That’s far lower than the library system’s $5.1 million budget in fiscal 2006-07 before the economic collapse.
Seminole’s libraries are due for a larger increase than Orange or Lake. The budget for next fiscal year includes nearly $6.6 million earmarked toward library services — nearly a 13-percent jump.
Plans call for adding 16 part-time librarians, assistant librarians and clerks at a cost of $272,524 to accommodate expanding hours to seven days a week. Since 2008, three Seminole branches have been closed on Fridays and two on Sundays.
The changes are included in the county’s new budget approved Tuesday by Seminole commissioners.
“I think this is very good news,” said Vanessa Boyd, a Seminole mother who homeschools her 9-year-old daughter, Isabel, and often uses the Casselberry library for research, videos and books for lessons. “When they closed the libraries on Fridays, I was very disappointed. Because Friday was a good day to come here.”
County Commission Chairman John Horan said libraries serve an important role in a community.
“It was heartbreaking to a lot of people” when Seminole made library cuts, he said. “People seek out libraries because they are hungering for knowledge and for all the other things that libraries provide. … Libraries add so much to the value and quality of life in a community. So this is a big deal for us.”