Updated Thursday, June 24, 2010, 6:03 p.m.
Charlotte Mecklenburg Library branches will cut hours by 56 percent beginning Tuesday, July 6, but 20 community branches – including those in Davidson and Cornelius – will avoid closure under a budget approved Thursday by library trustees.

Local officials across the county reached agreements with the county and library in recent days to supply additional funding to lessen the impact of county budget cuts. The $23.3 million budget adopted Thursday still means layoffs and service cuts.

In a notice posted Thursday afternoon, the library said, “Taking into account the ideas and concerns we heard from the public, we have done our best to develop a staggered schedule that preserves Saturday hours, allows regional libraries to be open later in the evenings one day per week, and organizes branches into geographic areas to give customers the option of using a nearby location when their branch is closed.”

The Davidson, Cornelius and other community branches will be open four days a week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, but closed Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays. Hours will be 10-7 Tuesday and Wednesday and 10-5 on Friday and Saturday.

66 NEW LAYOFFS

The budget includes the layoff 66 more employees, on top of 120 who lost their jobs last spring in a previous round of budget cuts.

Earlier this year, management of the Davidson and Cornelius branches was consolidated under a single branch manager, Ellen Giduz. She will remain as the manager in the new budget year.

The budget approved Thursday includes several million dollars in one-time funding from the City of Charlotte and five of the county’s towns. The towns are providing cash or in-kind contributions. (For details on those pledges, see our June 22 report, “Town boards commit funds to save branch libraries.”) That keeps local branches open for now, but the system will still have to spend the next year developing a sustainable operating plan for coming years, when that funding likely won’t be available.

SEEKING SUSTAINABILITY

Library officials on Thursday announced plans for a Citizen Task Force for the Future of the Library, which will “do a high-level examination of how to create a sustainable, stable funding base for the library.” The task force will work with another group, the Library-County Restructuring Committee, which will include three members of the Library Board, and three County Commissioners. The latter group will look at how to consolidate additional functions with Mecklenburg County, such as information technology, human resources, communications, finance, and capital projects management.

Library Trustees appointed to the committee were Molly Griffin, Darrel Williams, and Vice Chair Bob Sink. County commissioners on the panel would be District 1 commissioner Karen Bentley and at-large members Harold Cogdell Jr. and Dan Murrey. Those appointments still must be approved by the county commission.

LINKS

New hours information on the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library site.

Read background information on the library budget crisis and town efforts to keep the branch libraries open, CLICK HERE>