As the talks between the City of Milledgeville and Baldwin County continue over who will be funding the library, many of you have expressed concerns about our future. Obviously, if an agreement is not reached by June 30, 2008, our budget for Fiscal Year 2009 (beginning July 1st) will be affected. We will lose a total of over $270,000 in combined funding from the city and state, plus our membership in PINES, our Internet access and our Vacation Reading Program funding. On March 13, 2008 both of our local papers -- The Baldwin Bulletin and The Union Recorder -- ran front page articles about the situation. Unfortunately, there were one or two mistakes that managed to creep in, through no fault of anyone involved.

1) In the Bulletin article, it mentions that the library has not received an increase in funding since FY 2004. It should read FY 2002.

2) Also, in the Bulletin article, it mentions that “local support for the current year shall be equal to more than half the preceding year.” Actually, this should read "local support for the current year shall be equal to or more than the preceding year" in order for us to be eligible for state funds. *Any* reduction will trigger the loss of our funding.

3) The Union Recorder article has several inaccuracies: the City of Milledgeville gives us 72% of our annual budget, not 89%. Our total budget for FY 08 was $706,288.67 not $681,289 as stated in the article. Furthermore, we do not receive $7,000 from the Board of Education -- we receive $4,500. Furthermore, our in-house revenues are not $35,000 as stated -- it's actually $31,400 and that's not all from fines & fees as the articles states. That's from fines & fees, vending machine income, fax charges, photocopies and donations.

4) One of the patrons interviewed in the UR article mentioned that a loss of funding for the library "wouldn't have too much impact on the community as long as the library remains open." I hate to harp on the subject, but the loss of this much funding means that we may not be staying open at all. Unfortunately, that's a very real concern. With the loss in funding and our PINES membership, access to Galileo and all Internet service, plus the reduction in staff from 17 to 5 would mean that there wouldn't be much of a library left.