Analysis of the WC BOS 2023 Library Debrief and Research Report

At a hearing Tuesday night, 19 November, Warren County Board of Supervisors member Richard Jamieson declared to a crowd (decidedly against his proposal to create a County-controlled Library Board), “If you want to effectively oppose this policy proposal, I suggest you address its actual content prior to enduring the public hearing. Show where the financial data is wrong. Point out errors in the event timeline. Challenge the assessment that the public funding and public governance are misaligned.”

Indeed. The assessment in question is the 12 November document Sub-committee report on the 2023 Library Debrief and Research (signed by him and BOS Supervisor Vicky Cook). The report is divided into four main parts, the first three questioning specific aspects of the library’s relationship with the county while the fourth (even in a charitable reading), reads like a series of personal complaints beneath the dignity of a public official.

In the first section of the report, titled ‘Core Governance Issues,” after complaining about the process through which the 2023 Memorandum of Agreement was reached with Samuels Public Library (SPL), Jamieson makes the obvious point that county supervisors evaluate and approve budget requests from county agencies as well as partner agencies that provide public services to the county. He then makes a core governance argument that the library, which is dependent on county funding to operate, is too independent, as it combines “near-total financial dependence with almost complete management independence” (8). In this, he refers mainly to the library’s budget, in which he claims the county BOS can only participate through an up or down decision rather than “actively managing” spending per “other county departments and services.” He also raises concerns about past funding increases, which raised county funding at rates above population growth and inflation between 2006-2018, leading to “a substantially higher current cost basis.” (11) His argument in this section can be reduced to the BOS has too little say in how the money is spent, and it’s too much money anyway.

Regarding the inability to manage, the obvious retort is that the BOS can negotiate with Samuels on budget requests just like any other department or agency. He tries to say this is “impeded by the real prospect of disruption and antagonism,” without realizing that such negotiations have been routine every year before his presence on the board. As the Samuels board says in practically every communication it makes with the WC BOS, a non-hostile good faith negotiation has produced spending compromises in the past and can do so again in the future.

Regarding historical spending growth, not only did the county not provide 88% of funding between 2007-2023 (it was 69%, which is both a funding and timeline error),[1] but there has been almost zero growth in the library budget since 2018. The WC funding allocation went from $973,682 that year to $1,024,000 in 2023, a growth of 4.92% over the course of five years during which inflation averaged 3.96%.[2] Jamieson conveniently leaves these figures out of his argument that spending growth was too high. At the same time, he presents no rationale for the conclusion that baseline spending is too much other than an unsupported claim that this spending “complicates the county’s ability to balance service levels.” (12)

Given that in just one year (2023 to 2024), the Public Safety and Health, Welfare & Partnerships budget allocations (1^st and 5^th largest departments by allocation) grew by13.2% and 24.1% respectively, it’s clearly not the library budget that is complicating recent spending.[3] I did not cite General Government or Public Works spending (3^rd and 4^th largest), despite being obvious choices owing to significant budget allocation shortfalls for both departments that year.[4] In FY23, the two departments overspent by $2,624,166 (34.1%) and $1,941,221 (25.4%) respectively, a function apparently of a broadband project and significant building repair(s) cost. While this again illustrates a timeline error, it also suggests the BOS is focused on the wrong problem, cost-wise.

The second section of the report, titled ‘The Evolving Public/Private Partnership,’ focuses on the public/private partnership between WC and SPL. Jamieson takes pains to argue that post-2008, when the library moved from its Villa Avenue location to the Criser Road facility, was a poor deal for the County, as the latter building was paid for by the County ($6.38 million) while the Villa Avenue location remained SPL property with the County receiving a no-cost 20-year lease. In 2011, the relationship became worse, in his eyes, when the Villa Avenue location was lease/purchased to the County, at additional cost ($550,000). To Jamieson, this was a foolish decision by the 2011 WC BOS as “the county received no added value from possessing the title” beyond the free lease it was already set to receive for the next 17.5 years. He then makes a further argument that the 2011 decision both eliminated SPL debt, which he notes SPL was “struggling to repay,” and provided some capital improvement funds that has allowed the SPL endowment to grow as much as it has. As he puts it, these “funds may be viewed as a consequence of taxpayer payments to Samuels for which no present value was realized by the county.”

This conclusion misses the largest elephant in the room in this debate. By purchasing the Villa Avenue location, the obviously more sympathetic 2011 BOS helped the library financially manage the significant costs involved in moving and upgrading into a new building, with new equipment, etc., while also receiving the full value of the Villa Avenue location immediately. Instead of being constrained in a leasing relationship with SPL, the BOS carried out a win-win procedure where WC could keep, modify, or sell the Villa Avenue location at any time. And while it’s true the County has not sold the building to date, its current assessed value is $2.1 million, which is almost four times the original investment and a lot more than the zero dollars ($0) it would receive in 2028 if the County had stuck with the original 20-year lease agreement. This suggests the 2011 BOS was perhaps smarter than Jamieson prefers to let on.

The third section, titled ‘Cost Efficiency of Services,’ focuses on the relationship of cost for services. While Jamieson again focuses on the library funding increases from 2006-2018, which neither the current WC BOS or SPL board had anything to do with, his larger question is “whether the current cost basis for public library services is competitive, cost efficient, and in line with taxpayer interests.” (19) He follows this with an analysis of non-profit spending, arguing they are not statistically cheaper than for-profit businesses, and then accuses SPL of having higher per capita staff spending (and as a % of total budget) than the Handley Library system. He concludes that while SPL (indeed, any county library) is a monopoly, but that there is “no inherent basis for maintaining monopoly status as the contractor for these services, and there is a competitive market for library operating services in the U.S.” (19)

This section unfortunately ends here, without any reference to types of privately contracted library services, general costs associated with same, any costs related to transition, or the multitude of other direct and indirect costs and disruption of services associated with replacing the current partnership program with a contracted one. Perhaps that is for another report? That sort of study is clearly needed instead of a vague assertion that competitive contractor services can do a better job. Given most governments’ track record with contractors, I’m not sanguine.

Thankfully, we can begin such an analysis based on the Libraries Comparison Information Report from 29 October 2024. The more or less “apples to apples” report indicates that SPL, especially when compared to other single building libraries in Virginia, receives similar funding, salary and employee benefits, has lower funding per capita, lower staff expenditures, and receives a lower % of operating income. At the same time, it is on the high end per capita for circulation, visits, programs, program attendance, and total reference transactions.

A quick look at this report indicates Jamieson’s sleight of hand when it comes to his above comparison to Handley. First, in comparison to two other single-building libraries (Staunton and Waynesboro), SPL’s per capita cost is significantly lower ($20.27 v $35.10 and $28.29). Second, the Handley system covers a population 3.5 times the size of SPL, so of course some per capita comparisons will be lower just owing to scale. When compared to Handley regarding Director salaries, SPL spends less and for a library literally under half the size of Handley, and serving 30% the population, SPL has a reference load 83% of the much larger Handley system and a significantly higher circulation of books per capita (386,877 or 9.25 per v 745,424 or 5.36 per). Not to mention SPL won the Virginia Library of the Year award in 2024, and Handley did not. I would expect that any BOS who claims to be concerned with spending taxpayer dollars carefully should look long and hard at any proposal to change a system that produces such a result.

I am not going to address section four, titled “Impact of Public Narratives,” other than to say that while it reads like sour grapes, it has no bearing on the financial and cost efficiencies discussed above.

Suffice to say that when Jamieson states, “the key objective remains establishing governance that properly aligns public funding with public oversight while maintaining high-quality services for Warren County residents,” his report does not show public oversight is lacking, does not demonstrate SPL provides poor services, and uses statistical sleight of hand and incomplete timelines to make an ultimately unsatisfying and incomplete assessment. More disturbingly, there is zero discussion of how any of the drastic changes he suggests will negatively impact library services, let alone keep them at the high level needed to win Virginia Library of the Year. In the end, one must reference the controversies of last year and ask what is really driving this campaign against a library that serves our county so well? Why fix, at possibly great expense and disruption, that which is not broken?

Timothy L. Francis, Ph.D.
Fork District
Front Royal, VA

[1] See Library BOS Comparison Information Report, 28 Oct 2024, for this and other data below.

[2] https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-inflation-rates/

[3] For budget allocations by year, see https://warrencounty-va.cleargov.com/2023/native/expenditures?breakdowntype=department&objectid=1030651.

[4] I did not include debt servicing (2d largest) as that is not a department expense per se.

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