Layoff notices, threats of closure rattle Washington State Library

SEATTLE – The Washington State Library and the Washington Talking Book & Braille Library in Seattle are facing layoffs and severe cuts to services after lawmakers declined to include a $6.7 million lifeline in the state budget this session.

The libraries delivered notices to 47 employees, with plans to lay off those positions by June 30, the secretary of state’s office said in a news release Monday. That could lead to full closure to the public at the Braille library, which provides resources for seeing-impaired individuals, and the state library in Tumwater, Thurston County, a vital resource for researchers and historians.

Washington State Librarian Sara Jones said that the notices have led to highly trained staff members looking to leave and find new jobs.

“We haven’t shut any doors yet, but I think that’s coming pretty soon,” Jones said.

Jones added that the state library will try “every avenue,” such as finding funding from donors, to fill the hole, but that she doesn’t expect to raise enough to cover the shortfall.

“Libraries are cornerstones of civic life and education,” Jones said. “Without stable funding, we risk denying communities access to the information, literacy tools and resources they depend on.”

The state library is one of many agencies to see cuts to services and programs as the result of a projected multibillion-dollar deficit over the next four years that state budget writers spent months trying to balance.

The decision to not include the library’s funding request “was intentional in the sense that we had a lot of needs that we weren’t able to fund,” said House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, D-West Seattle, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee. He acknowledged there were many requests not fulfilled in the budget this time around.

Fitzgibbon added that local libraries that rely on the resources from the state library will also be at risk, and said he is also concerned about those impacts.

Sen. Derek Stanford, D-Bothell, vice chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, said in an email that the budget assumes the signing of House Bill 1207 by Gov. Bob Ferguson, which Stanford said would cover a majority of the secretary of state’s budget request for state library services.

The bill adds a filing fee for legal documents. It is unclear whether Ferguson will sign the bill into law.

The state library has existed in some form since 1855, decades before statehood.

Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said in a news release that it was “heartbreaking and distressing to witness the near elimination” of the library, and noted that the state library hosts a collection of research materials such as a “one-of-a-kind literary collection dedicated to our region and history,” a collection of Washington newspapers, and a collection of state and federal publications.

The library also provides subscriptions to genealogy and newspaper databases, but those would be discontinued with the cuts. The acquisition of new materials would be limited.

Jones also said that resources like books and newspapers are at the risk of deteriorating without human intervention.

The Braille library in Seattle, which is the state’s only accessible library for those who are seeing-impaired, is also at risk without funding, which could result in fewer Braille and audio materials being produced, in addition to closure of the facility.

In addition to the cut in state funding, there is uncertainty around federal dollars supporting the state library.

Services and positions at the Braille library are funded through state and federal dollars, while positions and services at the state’s central library are funded through the general fund as well as through document recording fees collected when people sell or buy a house or refinance their home.

The Washington State Library manages the federal dollars.

Services at the state library and the Braille library were threatened earlier this year after Jones was notified that federal funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ “Grants to States” program had been eliminated by the Trump administration. Those funds have since been restored, but federally and state-funded library employees are still potentially facing layoffs at the end of September because of state cuts.