“This evening I received this urgent letter.  Please read it and contact your representatives. ~Thomas”

State Aid and State Library Cut Deeply in budget – Contacts Needed Now!

This morning the House Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Subcommittee adopted a preliminary position that does the following:

• Reduces State Aid to Public Libraries from the current federal maintenance of effort level of $21,248,667 to $8,318,188 or a 60% reduction
• Consolidates the State Library and Archives, eliminating 7 positions and $437,875
• Takes away $532,289 for Library Resources in state General Revenue and replaces it with LSTA, thus reducing the LSTA funds available for other needs.
• Does not fund the library cooperative program which is at $1.2 million this year.

Severe Consequences

• The State Aid reduction would result in branch closings in large and small counties alike.  It would threaten Internet service in some libraries.
• The fund shift immediately threatens services currently paid for with LSTA funds like the Florida Electronic Library.
• In 2014-15 it would reduce Florida’s LSTA allocation from around $9 million by 60% to about $3.5 million which would almost certainly eliminate the Florida Electronic Library, including the electronic resources that all Florida libraries rely on, including k-12 schools.  Schools, colleges, and universities would lose access to vitally needed resources.
• Some of the MLCs will likely close without the $1.2 million in Library Cooperative funding.

Remember, the Governor included State Aid in his budget and it is currently, to the best of our knowledge, still in the Senate Transportation, Tourism and Economic Development budget.

Also remember this is early in the process.  The House and Senate committees have not yet reported out their budgets and they have gone to the House and Senate floor.  The session is scheduled to end May 6.  But we have to act now – many of these legislators are new and need to see how strongly Floridians feel about their libraries.

Please contact your legislators and let them know about this problem along with the House leadership and TED committee members listed below.  It is critical for them to hear from the library community now.

I know this is rough news, but please be very nice to these folks.  We’ve been through this before and we know that they really do want to fund libraries.  We also know that if we are polite and have folks send them positive messages that they will respect us and continue to work for us.  Florida library advocates have earned tremendous respect in Tallahassee, in the Governor’s office, with legislators, with staff, the lobbying corps, the press and the public by keeping our message positive and respectful.  Remember last year when we were the last issue settled after midnight and after the House and Senate budget conferees and budget chairs had completed their work.  We need to maintain these folks’ good will all the way to the end.  If we get negative it will give them permission to write us off.  Our job, as a responsible constituency, is to demonstrate that there is strong positive public support for funding these programs.

Please reach out to everyone you can, friends, board members, customers, your friends and associates – maybe everyone in your e-mail directory.

A base message you may choose to include with your description of why the services are essential:

“Please, the House Transportation and Economic Development Appropriations Subcommittee, restore State Aid funding to the full $21.2 million maintenance of effort level, the damaging reductions to the State Library and Archives, and the Library Cooperative funding at $1.2 million.  Thank you for your support and your consideration.”

Thanks for your great work – and get engaged now!

Charlie Parker –
Chair, FLA Legislative Committee

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