Simi Officials Weigh Report on Seceding From County Library System

After reviewing a dense report on how to remove the city’s library from the Ventura County Library Services Agency, the Simi Valley City Council on Monday night began to hash out details.

Much of the library’s future hinges on the outcome of a Ventura County study due Nov. 12 on a proposal to decentralize the county’s library system and return the control of its 16 member libraries to the individual cities.

But the City Council on Monday considered the ramifications of a hastily assembled consultant’s report on the idea of making Simi Valley’s library independent. The report by Sacramento-based Ralph Andersen & Associates, commissioned by the city and released late last week, promised that the city could operate its library at the current level of service for about $300,000 less than the $1.3 million the county spends.

The report studied 19 California cities with populations of 70,000 to 100,000 and found Simi Valley’s library lacking. The library has 150,000 books compared to an average of 197,426; it has a staff of eight to 12 full-timers and volunteers, compared to the study’s average of 45, and it has slightly more than half the 496 newspaper and magazine subscriptions held by the other city libraries.

“I think the numbers basically bear out what we thought all along” about the library, Councilman Paul Miller said. “It’s in trouble, and it’s not really serving our citizens well.”

The report also said that Simi Valley would have to spend $821,000 a year in addition to its property tax money to bring its library up to the average level of service. A $1.6-million annual city library budget would buy 10 times as many new books, twice as many newspaper and magazine subscriptions, longer hours, a new computer system and membership in a statewide book-lending network, the Andersen report says.

“We probably can’t run it cheaper, but I think that we can do it better with local control,” Miller said.

But the report also points out that historic precedents might keep Simi Valley from recouping the full $1.3 million operating amount from the county.

The Library Services Agency was formed in 1916, tying together all the county’s libraries except for those in Santa Paula and Oxnard, which already had their own independent library systems.

Since then, only one city in Ventura County has ever seceded from the county library system: Thousand Oaks negotiated with the county in 1980 to take over its own library and regain 100% of the property tax money that the county had been using to pay for it.

If Simi Valley were to try for independence it might be entitled to $805,974 in property tax money, or about 60% of this year’s annual library budget.

That means the city likely would have to raise at least $170,552 from other sources to foot the bill just to keep the library’s services, staff and book-buying budget at its current level.

Councilwoman Barbara Williamson suggested the city might charge a $15 or $20 annual fee to library cardholders or seek donations to bolster the budget. City Manager Mike Sedell warned that the amount California spends on Simi Valley’s library depends on use of the library being free to patrons, and it could be reduced if the city began to charge library users.

Councilwoman Sandi Webb recommended surveying current cardholders and residents who do not use the library to determine their needs.

The city might find some relief from library costs in another six years: The $1.3-million annual operating tab includes $214,000 each year to pay off the library building’s lease mortgage, which would occur in 2002.

Ventura County Supervisor Frank Schillo said Monday that Simi Valley should have no problem taking over its own library.

Schillo has been pushing a proposal to return all county-run libraries to independent operation, maintaining only a skeleton support network at the county level for common functions, such as buying books and preparing them for the shelves.

The county library system pays overhead for its own system that Simi Valley and other cities would likely not have to spend, he said. Schillo estimates that amounts to about $300,000 per year for Simi Valley.

“They could use that money to do what they want to do, which would be more hours for the library to stay open or more books, which would be wonderful,” he said.

Schillo said he not yet seen the full 51-page Andersen report, only an eight-page digest prepared by the Simi Valley city staff.