Beltrami County Board approves cuts to libraries and other community services
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At Tuesday’s county board meeting, the Beltrami Commissioners approved next year's budget, which includes funding cuts for the Beltrami County Museum, Paul Bunyan Transit and both Blackduck and Bemidji public libraries.
During the public comment portion of the meeting the Bemidji Library’s branch manager Sherilyn Warren told the commissioners that approving the budget would potentially force the library to go from being open six days a week to only four. And she warned how the decision would affect her nine employees.
“Out of the eight people who do front-facing work at the Bemidji library, we're going to be losing three of them,” she said.
Before voting in favor of the budget, Commissioner Tim Sumner questioned why the board hadn't done more to avoid those funding cuts leading up to the meeting.
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"It bothers me that we didn't talk about it,” he said. “It's like we're giving our public, our citizens false hope that we are doing something but in reality we're not. It's disappointing.”
In a last-ditch effort, Commissioner Joe Gould tried offering several amendments to soften the cuts to services, but none of the other members supported them.
In one option, the Kitchigami Regional Library System would tap its reserve funds to pay about half of the money needed to avoid cuts, with the county picking up the other half. Then he tried lowering the county’s portion to half that amount with Kitchigami paying the majority.
But Gould's efforts did not succeed, and the budget proposal passed 4-1 with Gould being the lone vote against.
The Beltrami County Museum will manage to avert the effects of the budget cuts, though. A donor stepped up to cover the amount of money that would’ve been lost.
Retired teacher, Beata Grantier was at Tuesday’s board meeting. A month ago, she also coordinated a protest with area book clubs against proposed cuts. Grantier said the board's decision has hurt the community.
“When reading levels are at an all-time low, when the epidemic of loneliness is at an all-time high and you have a community gathering place that will no longer be as available. It just feels dark to me,” she said.
The board said the cuts were necessary because of a June storm that decimated the area and because of a lack of state and federal funding options. The commissioners also approved a tax levy increase of about 10 percent.
