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School Board Blinks in Library Funding ShowdownThe Kanawha County (W.Va.) school board narrowly approved September 4 the restoration of $2.3 million from its FY2007–08 state revenues to the Kanawha County Public Library in a 3–2 decision that overruled school Superintendent Ron Duerring’s unilateral decision a month earlier to keep all the money for public school needs. “I think mostly we’re relieved,” remarked KCPL Director Alan Engelbert in the September 8 Charleston Gazette after learning that he was not about to lose one-third of his budget after all. However, the fiscal cavalry that rode to the rescue brandished a caveat: School board President Jim Crawford and two board members emphasized that they would release the funds—provided the state legislature reworked a library-funding formula affecting nine West Virginia counties, including Kanawha, by July 1, 2008. If that didn’t happen, board members said, they would retain the funds for the schools. “We didn’t just jump on this horse and ride it through the night,” board member Bill Raglin said before voting to keep the funds, according to the September 5 Charleston Daily Mail. “We couldn’t get anybody in the legislative rank to listen to this issue.” Offering to help school officials iron out discrepancies with the legislature, library board President Mike Albert noted that both sides “believe we have defensible legal positions”—alluding to KCPL trustees having agreed to file suit if necessary. The ultimatum is the second to state lawmakers in two years. The first came last December when the state Supreme Court sided with the Kanawha County school board’s claim that the 50-year-old mandate was unfair to public school students and ordered the legislature to fix the inequity. The result was a compromise law that increased discretionary funds in school systems’ state support from 2% to 6%, allowing education officials in the nine largest counties to retain autonomy over more funds than ever while continuing to support local libraries. “If I was the library, I would have a difficult time each and every year being under the thumb of the school board while they’re thinking of every way possible to not give you the money,” state Sen. Vic Sprouse (R-Kanawha) empathized. The ripple effect of the state’s largest library facing such uncertainty extended to the West Virginia Library Association’s decision to push back the early-bird registration deadline for its October 3–5 conference. September 7, 2007. |
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