Schillo Takes Library Plan to Educators

With barely two weeks to go before Ventura County may have to abandon its five smallest library branches, a handful of school officials huddled Friday to consider whether to go into the public library business.

A dozen of the county’s top school administrators met with Supervisor Frank Schillo in a Camarillo conference room to review details of Schillo’s latest plan to save the least-used branches.

School officials were unable to immediately support Schillo’s call to hand administration of the smaller libraries over to local educators.

But each of the districts at the meeting pledged to pursue the idea.

“None of us wants to see the libraries close,” said Robert Smith, a top assistant in the county superintendent of schools office. “But we’re not in a position to charge ahead.”

Schillo did leave the meeting with assurances from administrators that each would approach their respective school boards to discuss taking over libraries in Saticoy, Oak View, Meiners Oaks, Oak Park and Piru.

“That’s all I can hope for at this point in time,” he said. “I think that’s reasonable.”

Schillo said that if the schools support the plan, he would ask the Board of Supervisors to pay to keep the smaller libraries open on a month-to-month basis until details of the transfer could be worked out.

“That’s assuming I receive some encouragement,” he told the group. “I’m not going to do this on my own.”

But George Berg of Save Our Libraries said county officials should continue funding the smaller community branches regardless of whether the school districts buy into Schillo’s plan.

“We don’t feel it’s appropriate to push the school districts into making a premature commitment in order to get the Board of Supervisors to provide continuing funding to keep those small libraries open,” Berg said.

“They should be willing to do that on their own until the consultant comes back with a recommendation,” he said.

Later this month, the supervisors will begin advertising for a management expert to study the library issue and come up with a plan to form a joint-powers authority.

Under the preliminary proposal discussed Friday, the El Rio, Fillmore, Ojai and Ventura school districts would join with Ventura County cities to form a regional board that would take over the 16 county libraries.

More than $420,000 in county property taxes earmarked for library operations would be turned over to the school districts to pay for continued library service, according to Schillo’s concept.

Each of the cities, meanwhile, would use their share of those property taxes to finance libraries in their neighborhoods, and Ventura County would effectively abandon oversight of the library system.

Citing his own analysis, Schillo said that cities and schools could operate libraries for less money because they would be unencumbered by high-priced labor and other expenses.

“The best thing to do is get the [county] Library Services Agency out of the county altogether,” he said.

Time is running out, however.

The Board of Supervisors has threatened to close five of its 16 libraries next month, unless new money can be found.

Facing a $20-million budget deficit in the fiscal year that begins July 1, county officials have warned for months that there is no money to continue paying for the five least-used libraries.

Schillo proposes, however, that Ventura County turn all the libraries over to the cities and schools, which he said could operate the facilities less expensively than the county.

“You would not have four different libraries buying the same book,” Schillo told the school administrators. “By combining them, it actually saves money.”

But Mario Contini, superintendent of the Fillmore Unified School District, said he is worried that his school district will not have enough money to operate the libraries, even after the county turns over the property taxes.

“Very often the money’s there to get something up and running,” Contini said. “Then the money disappears a few years down the road and we end up looking like the bad guys closing the libraries.”

When first approached with the library federation proposal, city managers had asked to receive the property taxes collected from the unincorporated areas of Ventura County in addition to the cities’ regular share, Schillo said.

“That was their wish,” he said. “I never agreed to that.”

More studies need to be conducted before local school districts can agree to take on responsibility for public libraries, administrators said.

Schillo, who gave the school officials copies of his financial analysis of the library plan, said he recognizes that there is some risk to his proposal.

“It’s a leap of faith,” he said. “That’s what I’m working on. All those details have to be worked out, but we’ve got to get some conceptual approval now.”

Earlier this spring, county supervisors endorsed Schillo’s so-called library federation concept--a plan to turn the 11 larger libraries over to a group managed by city officials.

But that left the future of the five smallest branches in jeopardy.

“I have this fear of being on a board that closes libraries,” Schillo said. “I love libraries and I can’t see us doing that.”

Library officials have watched their budget dip from more than $10 million four years ago to less than $6 million for the current fiscal year.

Many cities have been forced to contribute money to the libraries to ensure that operating hours remain the same.

Schillo said the proposed 1996-97 state budget includes $10 million to public education for unspecified library services. He said county schools may be in a position to receive some of those funds.