Simi Urged to Hike Library Funds $16,000 : Services: Official says programs, hours could be cut without the additional money.

Without an infusion of cash from the city, the Simi Valley Library will have to cut its hours and services, the county’s top library administrator told City Council members Monday.

The council should consider spending an additional $16,000 this fiscal year to keep the library going at its present level, said Dixie Adeniran, director of the county’s Library Services Agency.

That scenario was one of several proposals outlined by Adeniran to the council. She also raised the possibility that the city could spend an additional $107,300 this year to increase services and hours at the library, a plan that met with little enthusiasm from the council.

With a possible $38-million county deficit on the horizon, council members said they doubted that the Board of Supervisors would continue to augment the library agency’s budget by $1.6 million a year, as it has done since the agency’s funds were cut in half two years ago because of changes in state financing.

Fearing that any additional money from the city would be used to close future county funding gaps, several council members said they were not willing to commit even to the request for $16,000 until the county’s budget is complete.

“[Adeniran’s] whole assumption is that the county is going to give her $1.6 million again this year,” said Mayor Greg Stratton before Monday’s council meeting. “Well, I wouldn’t make any bets on it.”

Even if the county only contributes about half that amount, or $820,000, most of the services in Simi Valley will be maintained, Adeniran said. At that lower level of funding, the agency would have to end its adult literacy program and close its eight neighborhood libraries, but services in the seven contract cities, including Simi Valley, would be maintained.

Simi Valley’s library would continue to stay open 47 hours a week, but the long-term funding of the library would be in question.

Adeniran said she spoke before the council in part to ask for input on how to fund libraries in the future.

Library services are at a crossroads, Adeniran told the council.

With such an uncertain future, she said the decisions government officials make now are as important as the decision made in 1915 to start library services in the county.

For the past two years, the Library Services Agency has had to turn to cities to help augment its budget and keep its libraries open, Adeniran said.

Ultimately, though, the county libraries need a long-term and stable source of funding, Adeniran said.

If libraries are to remain open, she said, government officials must choose from a range of possible options including new countywide taxes or having cities take over funding and administration of the libraries.

Although council members said they support continuing library services, several were skeptical about finding additional money for the agency and questioned how the agency was spending its present funding.

“If you look at the amount of money it actually takes to run the library versus the money they get in the budget, that’s a big difference,” Stratton said in an interview. “The idea should be to sacrifice administration and advance planning to keep the doors open.”

Stratton added that several council members are wondering if Simi Valley--which he estimates already pays about $1 million to run the library--should take over its operation altogether.

“If the county has to cut the hours below 36 a week to, say, 22 hours a week, our attitude is ‘Give us the money back and we’ll see if we can do it better,’ ” he said.

The council said it was prepared to allocate additional money to fund the library but told Adeniran to come back with her request in July, when county budget cuts are more clearly defined.