To: Winnefox Library System Board of Trustees
From: Mark W. Arend, Interim Assistant Director
Re: Assembly Bill 483—Library funding Maintenance of Effort requirement
Date: 15 July 2005
Last month Rep. Gottlieb introduced a bill which would eliminate the Maintenance of Effort (MOE) requirement for library system membership. MOE states that to remain a library system member municipalities & counties must fund libraries at a level no lower than the average of the past 3 years. Rep. Gottlieb believes that the MOE requirement is an unfair restraint on local government’s ability to allocate resources as they need and that the MOE requirement does not ensure quality library service. We feel that the elimination of this requirement would be harmful to local libraries for several reasons. Libraries receive funding from several sources: the local municipality, the county, and (through system services) the state. The MOE requirement helps ensure that all parties contribute to library support. The library system structure is an agreement among counties, municipalities, and the system to provide library services. As in any joint powers agreement, there is necessarily a fiscal requirement to assure that all partners will meet their obligations. If several municipalities, or a county and municipalities, made agreements to share police and/or fire services, there would likewise be a requirement for each partner to pay its way. The shared services would collapse if the fiscal responsibility was ignored. We fear that this may be the case with the statewide and regional library networks if maintenance of effort is eliminated. If municipalities don't want to maintain financial effort, they should decline to be partners in the shared library service network, pull out of systems and go it alone. If they want to be part of the agreement, then they should maintain effort.
With a shared automation system it is very easy for users of one library to borrow materials from other libraries; in fact the very purpose of the shared system is for libraries to share materials. There is concern that without the MOE requirement some communities will think they can simply borrow from what they term "rich" libraries rather than investing in their own collections. This would be patently unfair to the libraries which invest in their collections and unfair to the system which is required to ship more books around the countryside. The shared system works because all libraries bring something to the table.
The MOE requirement also helps insulate libraries from political pressures. It prevents radical budget cuts as a punishment for positions taken by the library director and board or due to complaints about library material selections.
This bill has been referred to the Committee on Urban and
Local Affairs. Two amendments to the
bill are being discussed at this time.
One would substitute a standards-based system membership requirement for
the MOE requirement. Statute already
allows a county to set minimum standards for public libraries (four