West Virginia Legislature Fixes Library Funding Bill

-- Library Journal, 3/15/2007

Efforts by the West Virginia Legislature to address a funding snag that has put nine county libraries in funding jeopardy finally reached fruition last Saturday, as the House of Delegates and state Senate reached a resolution just before the legislative term ended. Previously, school boards in those nine counties were not following a state requirement that 98 percent of school taxes go to school operations but instead were devoting a small segment to libraries—which amounted to up to one-third of those libraries' budgets. HB 541 changed that requirement to 94 percent, which covers the amount of money they were giving to libraries, J.D. Waggoner executive secretary of the West Virginia Library Commission, told LJ. The state's other 46 counties will now have more discretionary money for such things as salary supplements and capital projects.

While the library community "is satisfied with that part of the solution," Waggoner observed that librarians are "concerned" that the Legislature retained language that allows a school board to move its portion of library funding into an excess levy. That could jeopardize library support if such a levy failed. Some school officials have begun to raise questions. Ohio County Schools Superintendent Lawrence Miller, according to yesterday's Wheeling Intelligencer, said school officials were also reviewing their options. "If the court ruled that library funding can't come out of school system budgets, then it shouldn't," he said.