Kanawha County Senator Brooks McCabe says the legislature must find a way to support public libraries in the various counties around the state.
Sen. McCabe said Thursday there may be a way to link that funding with the state School Aid Formula which funds county school systems.
“We can take a careful look at how we fund schools, how we operate the bond issues to tie closer together the public education system and the community libraries,” McCabe said in a Senate Finance Committee meeting.
McCabe plans to introduce a bill that would help operations like the Kanawha County Public Library get its funding back that it lost with a state Supreme Court decision last month that said county school boards could no longer be ordered to fund libraries.
“Doesn’t it make sense to find a way to tie closer together our community libraries with the public education system?” McCabe asked.
West Virginia Library Commission Secretary Karen Goff told the committee state support of the library system ranks seventh among other states but state and local funding combined puts libraries down at number 49.
Goff says the average expenditure per library in other states is $36 but in West Virginia it’s $19.
“Our libraries are definitely partners but they’re sort of like stepchildren. I would like to see them come into a full partnership role,” Goff said.
The Kanawha County Public Library is set to lose $3 million from the Kanawha County Board of Education following the state Supreme Court written opinion.