MAHONING COUNTY Library cuts hours at branches by 11%

Library service will be cut by 86 hours a week systemwide and hundreds of thousands of dollars will be saved annually, an official said.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Faced with severe state funding reductions and escalating employee health insurance costs, the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County will reduce its branch operating hours by about 11 percent beginning Jan. 5.
Main library hours will remain the same, but the Austintown, Boardman and Poland libraries will close at 5:30 instead of 9 p.m. on Thursdays, and Sunday hours will be eliminated at North Branch. No branches will be closed.
The midsize branches -- Canfield, Campbell, Struthers, Brownlee Woods, East, North, South, West and Sebring -- will open at 12:30 p.m.
Hours will be extended to 8 p.m. Monday and Tuesday at East and Wednesday and Thursday at South, and North will be open until 8 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Brownlee Woods and South will be open 12:30 to 5:30 p.m. Fridays and closed Mondays.
The small branches -- Greenford, Lake Milton, Lowellville, New Middletown, North Jackson and North Lima -- will open at 11:30 a.m.
Total reduction
For the system's 19 branches combined, weekly library service is being reduced by a total of 86 hours, said Carleton Sears, library director.
"We have gone with usage patterns and tried to be open the hours that people really want us to be open and need to use the library," said Janet S. Loew, library communications and public relations director. "We've looked at community input on that and also at our statistics on hours of usage."
The reductions will save the system several hundred thousand dollars a year, bring consistency to branch operating hours, keep libraries open when they're most used, add evening hours to city branches by popular demand and make it easier to staff branches, Sears said.
The lagging economy has reduced state income tax collections, resulting in an $800,000 reduction in funds from that source for the local library system, Sears said.
The system got $10.7 million from the state income tax last year, and that is dropping to $9.9 million this year and a projected $9.4 million next year, he added. About 86 percent of the local library system's operating budget comes from the state income tax, Sears said.
Library employee health insurance costs have been rising by double-digit percentages annually, he added.
Sears said part-time employees will see their work hours reduced, but there will be no layoffs of library staff. Some full-time positions have been left vacant, he added.
milliken@vindy.com