Library finances questioned

The failure of the Spokane Valley Library Capital Facilities Area bond vote may allow the Spokane County Library District to dodge a financial bullet. The current district online financial reports indicate a potential $230,000 in planned maintenance and repairs that may be deferred. These are all expenditures that are included in the current approved budget. The rationale for this action is the potential lack of funds.

The question is: How would the district financially support the operations and maintenance of two new facilities, along with two expanded libraries, if they cannot maintain and operate the buildings that they already have? The director talks of “optimizing operations,” but can you really optimize another quarter-million dollars out of a $12 million budget? Operating costs are increasing and revenues appear to be flat, so how would they fund the new buildings? If the buildings had been approved, would there have been a levy-lid override in the oncoming years to support the expanded operations?

Did the desire to have new buildings cloud the financial considerations to operate the additional operations?

Jim Morrison

Spokane