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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Library director warns of more cuts


Library director Jan Sanders is leaving Spokane after four years to take a similar position in Pasadena, Calif. 
 (Jed Conklin / The Spokesman-Review)

Potential 2006 budget cuts in Spokane’s city library system could force the closure of three branch libraries or a one-year moratorium on acquisition of any new materials, Spokane’s outgoing library director says.

Jan Sanders, who is leaving her job Aug. 19 to take a similar position in Pasadena, Calif., said curtailed library hours in 2005 have hurt library services, and that any additional cuts in the library’s $6.4 million annual tax allocation could result in branch closures.

Spokane city officials are grappling with a $6 million cash shortfall in the city’s $120 million general fund.

Currently, the Indian Trail, Hillyard and East Side libraries are open just two days a week – Wednesdays and Fridays – as a result of a $1 million budget cut from 2004 to 2005. The Shadle and South Hill libraries are open three days a week. The Downtown Library was trimmed from six to five days a week.

Last year, all five branches were open five days.

Sanders said the library board may be faced with a tough choice of deciding between keeping branches open or cutting the library’s acquisitions of new materials.

She said the three smaller branches – Indian Trail, Hillyard and East Side – could be closed completely and the Shadle and South Hill branches cut to 20 hours a week each, which would be a reduction of their current openings of 24 hours a week.

The other choice – not buying any new books, tapes or other materials – would cause the library to become “irrelevant, and pretty quickly,” she said.

Sanders, who came to Spokane in 2001, had been recruited by Pasadena, which offered her the job of running both its library system and its city’s information management program, including the city Web site.

Pat Partovi, the libraries’ manager of neighborhood services, will become interim director for the next six months while the library board evaluates its options for a permanent replacement for Sanders.

Sanders said frustration over Spokane budget cuts was one reason she decided to take the job. Also, her daughter lives in Southern California.

“Ever since I came here the budget has gone down and down and down at the library,” Sanders said.

She lost $600,000 and 13 staff positions two years ago, and was forced then to cut branch hours from six days to five days a week. The cuts two years ago were followed by 2005 cuts of about $1 million, which forced the library system to trim 15 staff positions.

While library hours are down by 46 percent, use by the public has dropped just 10 percent this year. That means patrons are squeezing their library use into fewer days, leaving staff with less time to serve them. Sanders said she is concerned about her staff maintaining that pace of work.

Pasadena, by comparison, has voter-approved funding for a portion of its library budget, Sanders said.

“I knew it was a strong program with good community support,” Sanders said.

In Spokane, Sanders said she has asked the mayor’s office for a $154,000 budget increase for 2006 so that the libraries could restore five-day-a-week service at Shadle and South Hill, and partial openings of the Hillyard, Indian Trail and East Side branches on three days a week.

Sanders, who graduated with a master’s degree from Indiana University at Bloomington in 1970, has worked as a librarian in Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma and now Spokane.

“I’ve spent 30 years trying to build up libraries,” she said, adding that city budget cuts have been “horrible.”

During Sanders’ tenure in Spokane, she came up with a plan that allows parents to restrict their children’s access to adult material on the Internet, but does not limit patrons who want unlimited access to the Web.

Spokane’s libraries have about 97,000 card holders.