Scott Williams, swilliams@wolfrivermedia.com
The Shawano County Board gave tentative approval Wednesday to countywide library consolidation, although many details of such an overhaul remain to be ironed out.
The board action on a 26-1 vote means that staff now will develop a blueprint for the county to assume responsibility of all libraries throughout the county, including branches in Bonduel, Birnamwood, Mattoon, Tigerton and Wittenberg.
Such a reorganization is intended to safeguard the county from bills exceeding $100,000 a year from neighboring library systems, stemming from Shawano County’s current library structure and from residents crossing borders to use library facilities elsewhere.
It could take several months before a consolidation plan is ready, and officials said Wednesday that implementing a new county-run system likely would not occur before 2018.
County Board members, however, voiced support for consolidation as a strategy for fending off any further assessment of fees by surrounding library operators.
“This is something we have to look at,” Supervisor Tom Madsen said. “It’s a proactive step.”
Supervisor Roger Miller was the only board member to vote against the measure, as some voiced concern about unknown details that could be involved in replacing the organization of a city-county library system with branches operating somewhat independently.
Chief among those unknowns is how much it would cost the county to assume the task of funding all six libraries in the county, including the main library in downtown Shawano.
Supervisor Tom Kautza, who served on an ad hoc group recommending consolidation, urged his colleagues to move forward with developing a plan so that the full potential and impact of consolidation can be weighed.
“There’s all these questions that you do have,” Kautza said. “We have them also.”
The issue arose starting last year when Shawano County received bills totaling $141,000 from neighboring library systems in Brown, Outagamie, Waupaca and Langlade counties. The same library systems billed Shawano County another $123,000 this year.
The bills represent costs incurred by the neighboring library systems when Shawano County residents cross borders to patronize public libraries elsewhere. The situation is most common in border communities such as Pulaski and Marion, where residents find it convenient to use libraries close to home.
State law allows those outside library systems to bill Shawano County for each such crossover borrower, although no bills had been issued in recent memory until last year.
Seeking to avoid the compounding cost of crossover library borrowing, Shawano County officials first sought relief from state lawmakers and then moved to consider other possible solutions. An ad hoc group recommended converting to a consolidated county-run library system, which would protect Shawano County from any future crossover billing under the state’s complex formula for funding public libraries.
County Administrative Coordinator Brent Miller told supervisors Wednesday that he believes the cost of taking over libraries countywide would be less than the cost of paying neighboring library systems for crossover borrowing.
Miller urged board members to give consolidation preliminary approval so that all such details could be worked out.
“This is just to move forward with the plan,” he said.
The current Shawano City-County Library network operates the main library in downtown Shawano along with branches in Bonduel, Birnamwood, Mattoon, Tigerton and Wittenberg. The system’s yearly budget of approximately $600,000 is funded about 80 percent by the county and 20 percent by the city of Shawano.
Many of the branches also receive additional support from their local communities and enjoy varied levels of independence from the city-county administration.
Under a consolidated county system as proposed by the ad hoc group, all branches would operate under the county’s authority. Proponents contend that such an arrangement would allow for more uniformity in how libraries throughout the county are operated.
Supervisor Kathy Luebke, another member of the ad hoc group, told her colleagues Wednesday that any additional costs incurred by the county would be better than sending money to library operators elsewhere.
“It’s not to save us money,” Luebke said of the proposal. “But the money that we will be spending will stay in this county.”