Pasco to keep Holiday library open

Holiday's Centennial Park branch library will avoid the budget ax for one more year.

Today, Pasco County commissioners backed away from closing the county's oldest library to help balance a shrinking budget for a second year.

Rather than closing Centennial Park, commissioners favor reducing hours at all the county's libraries. Commissioners agreed on a plan to save the library at a workshop this morning but will formally adopt it as part of the 2010-11 budget, which takes effect Oct. 1.

Closing the Centennial Park library seemed to make sense, partly because it's within two miles of the South Holiday branch library. South Holiday could absorb the former Centennial Park traffic, though not without pain, commissioners conceded.

Closing Centennial Park would have allowed the county to move in county employees working out of leased space at Trouble Creek Road and Grand Boulevard. Those moves would have saved a combined $558,000.

But the idea of closing Centennial Park has proven unpopular, both among commissioners and library patrons. Nearly 3,000 Centennial Park patrons petitioned commissioners to keep the library open last week.

"I think we got a very clear message: They want it open," Commissioner Jack Mariano said.

As an alternative, chief librarian Linda Allen suggested opening nearly all county libraries one hour later each day, at 11 a.m., meaning they would be open 35 hours a week.

The one exception would be the Land O' Lakes library, the system's busiest. The county must have one library open at least 40 hours a week to retain federal and state funding, Allen said.

Allen would also cut 11 of 18 vacant jobs to save money.

Reducing library hours and staff would save $272,000, leaving the library budget $18,000 short, Allen said. The county will make up the difference out of $4.4 million generated by a small tax increase.

"I think it's more critical to the public that we keep all our libraries open, even if we have to go down in hours and level of service," Commissioner Ann Hildebrand said.

County libraries' free computers and other resources have made them increasingly popular with people seeking jobs or government assistance.

"You keep on reducing staff, and people continue to demand the service," County Administrator John Gallagher said.

The combination of shrinking staff and growing demand continues to strain the county's award-winning system, chief librarian Linda Allen said.

"We're just barely making it," Allen said.

Many library staffers worker 10- or 12 hour-days to keep the system running, Allen said.

"But it's falling apart," she said. "The wheels are coming off."

But as he did last year, Commissioner Ted Schrader reminded county officials Centennial Park library's not out of the woods yet.

"How are you going to save it next year?" he asked Gallagher in an aside. "Next year's not an election year."

Commissioners will hold the first of two public hearings on the upcoming budget at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 7 in Dade City. The second hearing is set for Sept. 23 in New Port Richey.