A.G. Gancarski
In what could be construed as a shot across the bow of the Lenny Curry administration, the office of Councilman Tommy Hazouri this weekend advanced an ambitious proposal to expand the library’s collection budget and increase allocations to Urban Core libraries. The moves would expand service hours and add more services to address the outcome gap between middle class and poor neighborhoods in Jacksonville.
Libraries have been under siege in Jacksonville’s budget process in recent years. The big cuts came early in the Alvin Brown administration, and the Jacksonville Public Library has yet to fully recover. Finite resources have forced the library system to decide among priorities. Some council members, such as Hazouri and fellow council Democrat John Crescimbeni have mused that those choices exact an undue burden on those who need the public libraries most.
During the Finance Committee budget hearings last week, Hazouri told the Finance Committee and the Library Board about the need to boost hours and outreach attempts in the Urban Core. The Library Board advanced proposals that, for Hazouri, satisfy several important considerations.
They address the achievement and resource gaps that disproportionately affect Jacksonville’s poorest neighborhoods. As well, they address public safety concerns by giving young people a place to go on nights when the libraries are open.
In an email sent to news media, Hazouri said, “Library serves as a resource center and safe haven and is critically important for a safer Jacksonville. The attached document includes a comprehensive plan of hour restoration, outreach programs and more that lays out how the Jacksonville Public Libraries will combat these challenges with a one million dollar budget.”
The proposal contains expanded hours and service levels at Urban Core libraries that accord with Project LEAP, a Library Extended Access Program that takes advantage of the library’s current role as a “community access center.” Today’s libraries aren’t just places to check out 50 Shades of Grey. Instead, the proposal says, they are places where parents can learn to teach their kids how to read, where job seekers can get help with résumés, where students can get help with homework, and where community groups can convene for the greater good.
Central among the proposal: making the Highlands branch library a regional library with Monday hours. The Urban Core area has lacked a regional library, and the main library is too far away for the poorest, most transportation-challenged users in these areas.
As well, more money would go to outreach in the Urban Core. But there are realpolitik concerns also. Two non-Urban Core libraries, Southeast Regional in Danny Becton’s district and Pablo Creek in Aaron Bowman’s, get increased resources, both because of their usage levels and because both men support the Urban Core expansion in the current proposal.
The proposal, as mentioned, extends Monday hours to newly minted regional library Highlands, while adding hours to create eight Saturday hours at the Dallas Graham branch in the Urban Core. It also ensures that each Urban Core branch library is open two nights a week going forward.
It would also add five Youth Service Librarian positions to help with the skills building, while working toward expanded collaboration between the JPL and the Duval County School System, which would include 60,000 youngsters getting library cards and facilitating school field trips to public libraries.
Project LEAP, mentioned above, also factors in. Proposed as a remedy for social ills and educational attainment gaps, LEAP focuses on outreach and partnership in collaboration with nonprofit stakeholders.
The LEAP team, which would add five full-time employees, includes computer skills specialists, an early learning specialist, a literacy specialist, and a family literacy specialist.
As well, there would be a $270,000 boost to the collections budget, which has been slashed in recent years. That number would bring the total collections budget for the next fiscal year to $500,000.
The Urban Core branch libraries face existential challenges that this proposal can’t address. For one, they are old spaces, too small to be modern libraries, without discrete study areas and other amenities the new facilities take for granted. This is one reason why the proposal to make Highlands a regional library is so important.
Despite these issues, the proposal contends that it’s still important to have hours at these libraries. The proposal would ensure that all Urban Core libraries have service six days a week, and extended service in Northwest Jax and Arlington branches.
For Hazouri, this is a big deal. As the former mayor said in a statement:
“We, as a city, can’t afford to shortchange our children. Our libraries have lost hours and resources the past several years. We are in a position to recapture those hours, and create programs in our Urban Core that will reach out to our children and parents to provide more than books, but educational opportunities to meet needs that have been woefully neglected. No one should be left behind.”
During the June budget review between the Jacksonville Public Library and the incoming Lenny Curry administration, Curry’s Chief Administrative Officer Sam Mousa had some issues with the JPL budget’s lack of rigor and simultaneously asking for money while maintaining money in fund balances that could, theoretically, be used to accomplish the things in this new proposal.
The proposal doesn’t address that disconnect.
We were told that the library system had a few more than the proposal draft that Hazouri’s office advanced. What this might say about the JPL’s ability to align its priorities to that of the larger city budget is definitely open to interpretation.
