County’s Elected Majority Targets Samuels Library Budget Request for Cuts in Coming Fiscal Year After ‘Objective Review’

It became apparent during about an hour of increasingly tense work session grilling of Samuels Public Library Board of Trustees Treasurer Michelle Leasure and Library Director Erin Rooney that the philosophical battle about Library funding and operations is going to escalate as the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget process progresses toward final funding decisions by the county’s elected officials. That “grilling” at a Tuesday, February 25, Budget Work Session was conducted primarily by County Supervisors Vicky Cook and Richard Jamieson, with apparent continuing support from Chairman “Jay” Butler and John Stanmeyer.

It also seemed apparent that in a financially tight coming fiscal year with cited across-the-board inflationary costs, as well as needed equipment and staffing replacements or expansion pushing overall County costs above projected revenue projections, that the same four-person county board majority critical of Virginia’s current Library of the Year will not consider tax increases as a means to balance the county’s FY-2025/26 budget.

So, it would seem those four supervisors named above will make departmental and outside agency funding decisions based on its collective perception of service priorities and the financial status of those departments or outside agencies. And to make a baseball analogy, that appears to be two strikes against Samuels Library.

To be or not to be – Warren County’s Public Library? Will Samuels Library, dating to 1799 as Virginia’s 2nd oldest certified public library and the Commonwealth’s current Library of the Year remain in its historic position of excellent service to the community? Stay tuned for the WC Library Board’s ‘Objective Analysis’ of its financial and perhaps cultural status. Royal Examiner Photos Roger Bianchini

That is because it seems apparent the supervisors majority doesn’t consider the community’s 200-plus year-old public library, dating to 1799 as the second oldest chartered library in Virginia, a true service provider despite some pretty impressive program and library usage statistics. Those statistics were cited in response to a budget work session agenda item question directed the library’s way:

“3/ Please explain the measurable, positive impacts your services will have on Warren County. Also please explain how your agency measures success.”

The Library’s written reply noted: “Samuels Library’s positive impact on Warren County can be measured by the level of usage from our community. In FY24, the Library was utilized as follows:

“Library Visits – 127,751; Cardholders – 16,148; Items Checked Out – 401,859; Database Usage – 107,998; COVID Test Kits Distributed – 1,118; Events – 542.

“AS WELL AS: Meeting Rooms – 2,007; Adult Volunteer Hours – 6,894; Teen Volunteer Hours – 1,966; Public Computer Usage – 14,813; Wireless Internet Usage – 11,335; Website Usage – 147,547; Mobile App Usage – 19,523; Questions Answered – 45,226;  (1 on 1) Trainings – 5,110; Notary Usage – 446; Tests Proctored – 4.”

And while no one with any sense, including library officials and supporters, would argue to defund Fire & Rescue emergency services or law enforcement in order to meet the library’s County funding request of $1,193,261.85, is that really a necessary paradigm for the county’s elected officials to consider?

Neither being WC Human Resources Manager Kayla Darr, Samuels Public Library Director Erin Rooney, left, and Samuels Board of Trustees Treasurer Michelle Leasure, present the library’s FY-26 budget request to the BOS.

Library official Leasure parried with the supervisors over exactly what percentage of the County’s budget it is asking for to achieve the $1.193-million dollar operational, grounds and building maintenance budget request to the County in the next fiscal year. “For the services we provide we don’t think a penny on the dollar (of the total County budget) is too much to ask,” Leasure told the supervisors.

Of Samuels Library fundraising, Library Board of Trustees Treasurer Leasure explained, “And what we get in donations is to take us from an average library to above and beyond GREAT library. So, a lot of the donations we get in are restricted for certain things. They’re not to operate the library. They’re not to turn on the lights every day, they’re to take us from the average to above average to where we are recognized as (Virginia’s) Library of the Year 2024.”

That was countered on the County side by a discussion of “discretionary” spending, which was cited at considerably above one penny on the dollar, or 1% of the County’s overall budget. This reporter believes he heard both 16% and 60% cited, though of exactly what parts of the County Budget was unclear.

As the discussion escalated, North River District Supervisor Jamieson told the library budget team that he would not consider their budget request until the County’s controversially appointed new Library Board “does its job”. That job, Jamieson asserted, is to “objectively review” the Samuels Library budget and finances. That assertion was made despite a highly controversial interview/non-interview and appointment process that saw at least three, if not four of the five County Library Board appointees having demonstrable ties to the “Clean Up Samuels” LGBTQ book banning effort of 2023. And Samuels Library supporters have stated that qualified, pro-library applicants they know applied for positions on the new county library board were not called in for interviews.

With no Public Comments section at a work session, that “objectively review” comment didn’t get the perhaps skeptical immediate reaction it might have. However, lone Samuels Library supervisor supporter Cheryl Cullers did react, not only to Jamieson’s “objectively review” comment, but to the entire process initiated by the supervisors majority withdrawing county-owned outisde building and grounds support work by its Public Works Department without even notice to library officials such action was being taken.

And then essentially trying to force them, as a successful fundraising 501-C3 non-profit entity also adept at grant applications to help defer operational costs, to become totally or close to it self-sufficient financially. Or maybe if they’d at least take those LGBTQ-themed books, seen by many as a lifeline to youth reaching puberty with self-generated sexual identity issues, off its shelves the supervisor’s majority could more “objectively” appoint its County Library Board and/or consider maintaining the funding parameters that have been outlined in past agreements where county properties have been involved and increased in value from the library’s involvement.

This Royal Examiner file photo of then Chairman Cheryl Cullers, and North River Supervisor Richard Jamieson seemed highly appropriate for the two not seeing eye-to-eye, as they do not on Samuels Public Library funding and financial oversight.

In response to Jamieson’s not consider the Samuels Library budget submission until the new County Library Board “does its job”, allegedly of an objective budget review despite its apparent “Clean Up Samuels” majority makeup, Culler posed this question (3:11:50 video mark): “With that statement, does that mean we’re going to hold the library finances, financial aid, and staff in Limbo as to whether they’re going to have a job and whether they’re going to have a paycheck?”

After an initial brief period of silence from Cullers’ colleagues, Jamieson said, “It is a whole budget season process underway. So, um, what I said is I’m going to wait till what the Library Board has to say of its evaluation of all this. There’s quite a list, quite a lot of time involved here,” to which Cullers replied, “Yea, but that’s an awful position to have that staff in. And when they’re doing an excellent job.”

Cullers continued to cite her attendance at the previous Saturday staff meeting at Samuels Library, describing an interaction with a staffer whose disposition was so positive and cheerful despite the current uncertainty about the library’s future that she felt compelled to thank him for his presence and upbeat continuation of his work at the library.

“And this situation just breaks my heart for them. We should not be doing this to them, I’m sorry, we shouldn’t,” Cullers said pointedly of the evolving situation many see as a board majority punishment aimed at the library for its resistance to the 2023 “Clean Up Samuels” effort of book banning. That effort appeared based largely on personal religious belief opposition to alternate sexual identities being presented in any positive or even neutral ways to county citizens young and old. It may be noted that in response to the “Clean Up Samuels” effort the library administrative staff did move some content to older youth, and even adult sections, from younger sections.

In response to Cullers statement, Fork District Supervisor Cook pointed out that the library and county as a whole was currently in the last half of Fiscal Year-2024/25. Consequently the FY-2025/26 budgets under consideration wouldn’t go into effect until July 1 of this year. Her point appearing to be that the uncertainty about jobs and the future existence of Samuels as the county’s funded public library was 4-plus months away.

There’s plenty of time to sort this all out, don’t you think Fork District Supervisor Vicky Cook seemed to indicate of the 4-months, 1-week till Fiscal Year-2026 becomes operatively financed.

Noting that large question of whether the new County Library Board would even recommend that the County continue to contract with Samuels as its public library, Cullers added of Library staff, “So, these people are going to be in Limbo just like all the federal workers everybody is up in arms about, the ones that just got laid off and all the outrage that is. These people are facing the same thing,” Cullers said pointedly, to which Jamieson responded:

“Well, I think we have to provide public services to the taxpayers. And we’re not,” here Jamieson paused before continuing, “Our job isn’t to preserve a certain level of employment at a certain place. That’s the only way I can think to respond to that,” Jamieson said with a glance Cullers way at the far end of the board dias, adding, “We’re not able to guarantee positions,” adding that all jobs are subject to administrative removal as deemed necessary.

Samuels Library reps Erin Rooney and Michelle Leasure look a tad worried as the board discussion of their budget proposal developed around disputed comparative statistics, as well as the assertion that the newly created County Library Board will be entirely objective in its review of the Samuels budget submission

Cullers comments and that exchange came in the wake of these below Jamieson remarks (3:06:33 video mark) opening with a seeming peace offering that quickly took a combative turn over what has been a long-contested library-supervisors debate over comparative costs to other libraries: “Well, as always Samuels is able to produce a very long list of good services they provide at a high level, and I’ve always acknowledged that,” Jamieson began. “But one of the things on my mind and has been for a long time is the cost of the services.

“Everybody, well not everybody but most people here know that at this point we’ve seen that staffing costs run at least 50% higher than the most efficient libraries in this area.” — “Not everybody” indeed, as Samuels Library officials have disputed this comparison’s accuracy due to disparate operational and service area parameters to other regional libraries.

But Jamieson continued trying to maintain the theme of Samuels operational inefficiency leading to needlessly expanded costs the County should not be asked to cover with tax revenue: “And what I think is really particular about the situation is that we have a non-profit coming to us as a supplicant for taxpayer dollars. Your hand is out for a million dollars, or $1.19-million dollars. But with the other hand, and metaphorically speaking, they’re clubbing us over the head, suing us to stop us from having a County Library Board. And we do have a County Library Board, that’s not going to change,” Jamieson said somewhat confidently that a coming Warren County Circuit Court Judicial ruling will go the County’s way.

Could Supervisor Richard Jamieson have a crystal ball on a coming WC Circuit Court ruling on Samuels Library’s legal challenge of the County’s right to create a unilateral oversight board to establish funding or contractual parameters for the library?

“But you’re suing us to stop us from having a County Library Board. And one of the principal functions of those library boards, which the vast majority of all counties in the state have, is to objectively review services related to costs.”

There’s that word “objective” again. Of course what the North River District supervisor omitted from his assessment of the situation was the recent (2023) effort to control library reading material to one religious, personal belief veiwpoint that appears to library supporters to have been the driving motivation for the creation and above-referenced appointment of that County Library Board.

And so we will leave you to peruse this story, and the linked County video of the Samuels Library presentation (2:22:02 video mark) and consequent full debate of what is at stake in the County’s review of its 2024 Virginia Library of the Year’s Fiscal Year-2026 Budget request.

And we’ll see you for the next round of action, including Circuit Court arguments, currently if we recall correctly, anticipated to begin on May 2nd.

See the  County video for all the departmental and agency budget request presentations, and additional discussion of other funding needs in the coming Fiscal Year-2026.

County Budget Work Session Departmental and Agency Budget Requests Summary

By Royal Examiner

5:00 PM February 25, 2025  – Budget Work Session

Budget Request – Circuit Court/Clerk of the Circuit Court/Law Library

COST & FINANCING:

$740,764 – Expenditures / $552,328 – Revenue (Clerk of Circuit Court)

$70,817 – Expenditures / $15,000 – Revenue – (Circuit Court)

$64,205 – Expenditures / $62,205 – Revenue – (Law Library)

Budget Request – Commissioner of Revenue/Reassessment

COST & FINANCING:

$1,301,097 – Requested (Commissioner of Revenue)

$636,309 – Requested (Reassessment)

Budget Request – Treasurer

COST & FINANCING:

$668,201 – Requested

Budget Request – Sheriff’s Office / E-911 System

COST & FINANCING:

Sheriff’s Department – $2,468,528 – Requested

E-911 – $1,410,930 – Requested

Budget Request – Information Technology

COST & FINANCING:

$973,304 – Requested

Budget Request – Commonwealth Attorney

COST & FINANCING:

$1,210,408 – Requested

Budget Request – Public Works (All)

COST & FINANCING:

Public Works – $120,500 – Requested

Shenandoah Farms SD – $900,244 – Requested

Refuse – $4,136,453 – Requested

Maintenance Building & Grounds – $2,730,877 – Requested

Airport – $449,199 – Requested

Budget Request-Samuel’sPublicLibrary

COST & FINANCING:

$1,193,261,.85 – Requested

Budget Request – Human Resources / New Positions

COST & FINANCING:

$418,402 – Requested

Budget Request – County Attorney

COST & FINANCING:

$424,011 – Requested

Budget Request – Finance & Purchasing / Non-Departmental / Debt Service

COST & FINANCING:

Finance & Purchasing – $657,732

Non-Departmental – $5,740,970

Debt Service – $11,545,685

Budget Request – Board of Supervisors / County Administrator / Drug Court / Economic Development & Tourism

COST & FINANCING:

Board of Supervisors – $168,343 – Requested

County Administration – $469,735 – Requested

Drug Court – $50,000 – Requested

Economic Development & Tourism – $135,269 – Requested

Budget Request – Capital Improvement Plan (CIP)

COST & FINANCING:

$4,190,000 (For FY-2026)

Budget Request – Assets (Estimated)

COST & FINANCING:

$3,481,654 Requested for FY26