Library Director Brings Budget Discussion to Oakton

Sam Clay, director of Fairfax County Public Library, is hoping to reverse the almost 27 percent budget cuts the libraries have suffered since 2009. 

“Our goal is to make the libraries absolutely essential to people’s lives,” Clay said. “More support can lead to more money.”

Clay is hosting a series of "Discussions with the Director," the last of which will be at Oakton Library at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

“Our customers are a basic asset,” Clay said at Kings Park Library, the first of the meetings last month. “We want to ensure that we are able to listen to them.” 

The meetings are part of Clay's strategic planning process for fiscal year 2013. Clay said he wants to hear customers' priorities for FCPL, and hopes by educating county residents about the library's budget issues, he will be able to recruit supporters.

Clay said because of the budget cuts, the library is limited in what it can accomplish. Staff, hours and material purchasing have all been negatively effected.

According to Mary Mulrenan, FCPL communications director, the library's total adopted budget in fiscal year 2008 was $33,536,725.  The total adopted budget for fiscal year 2012 is $26,035,911.

“We currently get .08% of the county budget,” Clay said. “I assume that number will decrease in the future.”

Statistics provided by Mulrenan show since fiscal year 2008, merit staff working for the library decreased from 499 to 376 in 2012, a 30 percent cut in merit staff.

Many more library employees lost their jobs, but were non-merit staff.

"Parsing variances in part-time staff includes both merit and exempt limited term and is not readily available," wrote Mulrenan in an email.

To save money, Fairfax County Public Library also cut its hours. Total weekly hours regional libraries were open each week in 2008 was 65.  This year, regional libraries are open only 54 hours each week. For the community branches, hours have been cut from 59 weekly in 2008 to only 47 hours weekly this year.

Clay said he hopes “Discussions with the Director” will serve as a tool to help make the best of an uncertain economic time. He plans to schedule separate discussions with different age demographics in order to better understand how people are using their libraries.

“The library has four major assets," Clay said. “Our buildings are one, our collection is one, our staff is one, but our customers are our basic asset. These conversations will help us.”