Bidding Ends at Library Auction Thurs. Auction items for the St. Ignace Public Library fundraiser include this painting by Paula McNamara, rustic lamps donated by Everson's Home Furnishings, and pottery by John Herbon. Silent bidding will end at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 23, with an open house scheduled from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Many other items line the reference tables in the main room of the library. Bids can be placed anytime during business hours.

Public library hours in St. Ignace will be cut by an hour or two each day in the face of a projected 32% drop in library funding. Taking a $16,640 bite out of the library's budget this year, the cutback in penal fines funding in Mackinac County pushes financial support for the library back to the lowest levels in 16 years. To offset the loss, the library board will pare 46 open hours a week to 37, lay off one staff person and reduce hours for the other two, and will have the building on Spruce Street cleaned only twice a week, rather than three times, it decided Tuesday evening, April 14.

The measures will save about $9,500. New library hours (see box) will take effect Friday, May 1.

The board weighed several costcutting options presented by librarian Cindy Patten Tuesday, ranging from saving about $3,000 a year by combining and trimming staff hours, to saving $13,000 a year by scaling back library operations to 1993 levels, the last time library funding was this low.

"I never dreamed it would go as low as this," said Ms. Patten Wednesday, April 15. "We do have a fund balance of almost $30,000 for the library, but we are reluctant to use it at this time, because we just don't know what the future will hold."

Fines paid by defendants for traffic offenses and minor crimes in Mackinac County are put into a pot each month by 92nd District Court, with fines for third offense drunk driving from 11th Circuit Court, and held by the county treasurer's office until the program's fiscal year ends in June. The St. Ignace library expects to receive a check in July from the county treasurer for $35,360 for library operations for the coming year.

In 2008, it received $52,000.

The bulk - 70% - of funding at the St. Ignace library comes from penal fines. The remaining 30% of the library's revenue includes state aid of $3,000 (this year), plus fees that come in a few dollars at a time, from video rentals, book fines, copy machine use, community room rental, and non-resident fees of $30 per year (or $15 for summer residents) for patrons who live outside St. Ignace, Moran Township, and St. Ignace Township.

The library board also will spend $200 less on newspaper subscriptions this year, $200 less on other periodicals, $250 less on miscellaneous library supply items, and shave at least $1,400 from its spending on books.

"We didn't want to go to the most drastic cuts - yet," said board member Mary Maurer. "All we can do is to cut staff, cut hours, or cut services. It's my understanding we won't be purchasing any new books once the current bestsellers fund of about $650, donated by Friends of the Library, is depleted. Luckily, we do have a grant from a local family to continue to purchase children's library materials. We do have wonderful community support, so it's not all negative news.

"There may be some people who will now question whether we should have built the new library four years ago," Mrs. Maurer continued, "but that's not the issue. The problem is with revenue, not expenses. We would have had to make similar cuts if we were still in the old library building. In the meantime, expenses have gone up a lot in the four years since the building was built, but so has library use and so have library services, such as the community room. That's the good news for this community."

On Mackinac Island, the public library will be impacted by the same funding drop, and the library board is likely to meet in May to consider its options, said board president Kay Hoppenrath.

"We may have to consider cutting some assistant hours," she said, but the meeting has not yet been scheduled to discuss the issue.

"The library is very important to the Island community, and the summer employees really make use of the library, too, and we're delighted they do," she said.

Some Neighboring Libraries Covered by Bayliss Fund Balance

Neighboring libraries in Cedarville, Moran, Engadine, Curtis, and Drummond Island, all branches of the Bayliss library system based in Sault Ste. Marie, are faring better than the St. Ignace facility, partly because penal funding for their parent library in Chippewa County is down only 1% this year, compared to last. The portion of their funding that does come from Mackinac County penal fines is down, but Bayliss library will offset that loss by spending part of its $285,000 fund balance set aside for the branch libraries, said Bayliss director Ken Miller.

"We're lucky. Reduction in penal fines in Chippewa County is only 1%, so we breathed a sigh of relief," said Mr. Miller, noting that the Bayliss library system has a strong fund balance built up by his predecessor, the late Janus Storey. "Our Mackinac County branches are in the same boat as St. Ignace, though. The problem with penal fines is they go up and down. What we're going to do for this year is to draw from the fund balance rather than reducing hours or staff at the branch libraries. We dodged a bullet this time around."

The branch library in Curtis relies on a millage for most of its funding, he pointed out.

In Cedarville, Les Cheneaux Community Library has seen its funding "going down steadily for at least the last two budget years," said librarian Ronda McGreevy. There are no plans to cut staffing or business hours, but fundraising plans for library programs are in development, she said.

At the Cedarville library, penal fines pay only for materials and staffing, while its Friends of the Library group pays for the building's operational costs and utilities.

Fewer Traffic and Misdemeanor Citations in County Blamed for Plunge in Funding

Why has penal funding in the county taken a 32% plunge from last year to this year?

Judge Beth Gibson of 92nd District Court blames the downswing on fewer traffic and misdemeanor charges in the county last year, as a result of cutting the Operation Sabre police patrols on US-2, fewer overweight trucks crossing the Mackinac Bridge, and fewer police patrols in general owing to state cutbacks. She also points to a mellowing of activity in recent years on Mackinac Island and at the St. Ignace car show, two big generators of citations in years past.

"It's happening to everybody," she said, referring to lower traffic volumes and police budget cutbacks. "We're not reducing fines and costs. We're doing everything the same as last year."

"On Mackinac Island, tickets have tapered off amazingly over the last four or five years," Judge Gibson said.

District Court administrator Jeanine Blakely agrees.

"Project Sabre was cut out, and that brought in extra money over the past several years," she said. "And the St. Ignace car show, we used to see some 600 tickets come through on that, and we just don't anymore. It doesn't account for the one-year drop, but over several years, yes."

In criminal cases, some defendants can work off a portion of fines and court costs through community service, Judge Gibson said, and that may be on the rise locally.

"When we have defendants come before us, nobody has any money," she said.

On a typical drunk driving offense, the penal fine is $250. It's added to court costs of $53, Crime Victim Assessment charges of $50, costs of $597, a probation fee of $50, and officer wage reimbursement of $100, according to the court.

The bulk of penal fines funding comes into the county from District Court, not from felony cases, with Circuit Court cases contributing only 5% of the $132,399.55 total last year, and none from Probate Court, according to the county treasurer's office.

Civil infractions are on the decline over the past four years, according to Judge Gibson, dropping 414 from 2007 to 2008 (see box).

Of the total penal fines collected in a year, the county treasurer distributes money to the following libraries, based on population of their service area: St. Ignace, receiving 40.03% of the total; Bayliss branches, 46.27%; Tahquamenon Area Schools public library, 8.38%; Mackinac Island, 4.38%; Rudyard, 0.94%. A flat $2,500 comes off the top of the fund each year for the county's law library. That number has not changed, said Susan Dionne of the county treasurer's office.

County judges have discretion to set the fines they will collect for various offenses. Using annual state guidelines given to judges, "we are in the midstream of the recommended range" for fines collected in Mackinac County, said Ms. Blakely, the District Court administrator.

She gives the example of a typical $80 traffic ticket: $40 goes to the state, $30 to the county's general fund, and the fine of $10 goes to the library fund.

Judge Gibson said she prefers to be in the middle or on the low end of recommended guidelines for fees, with the exception of traffic violations involving school buses, where she sets fines "on the heavy end."

"We can change - minimally - how we charge the fines," the judge said, but raising court fines to generate more library funding would not be an appropriate or ethical way to address the problem, because fines can't be raised to serve any entity.

Those relatively small penal fines add up significantly for libraries over the course of a year. In the year that ended June 30, 2007, the penal fines fund from District Court was $148,226.21, to be shared among the libraries. The next year, it was $119,966.55, a drop of some $28,000.

From its $90,200 zenith in 2001, penal fines funding to the St. Ignace Public Library has dwindled by a few thousand dollars each year, with the drop from last year to this year the sharpest by far (see box).

Judge Gibson points out that library funding is likely to go up when police funding and patrol levels are restored in the state.

"It won't fix the problem today or tomorrow, though," she said.

Library Funding Cuts Proposed at State Level, Too

The amount of penal fines funding generated from one area to another varies widely all across Michigan, said Gretchen Courad, executive director of the Michigan Library Association. Areas with active police patrols or road weigh stations will tend to generate more tickets, and more funding.

Just as important, she said, is that library funding is in jeopardy at the state level, too. The Michigan Senate voted to cut state aid to libraries by 50% April 1, a proposal that will now go to the House of Representatives for consideration.

"Penal fines funding is mandated by the state constitution, but it's very erratic across the state," Ms. Courad said. "There is no data to say what the trend is across the state. But the Senate just voted a 50% cut, to 50% of what's required by state statute. Libraries are getting hit with short funding from every angle. It's not good news going forward. The big thing we're seeing now is at the same time funding is being cut, the demand for libraries is exploding. More job seekers are visiting libraries to search for jobs online and some people are using library Internet service when they are losing their Internet access at home because of the economic recession."

St. Ignace, Cedarville Libraries Will Step Up Fundraising Efforts

Fundraisers will be planned this year for the St. Ignace library, Ms. Patten said, and the library enjoys strong support from its Friends group, which purchased a copy machine and color printer for the facility last year. Donations to the library or the Friends are always welcome, she said.

She also points out that even with the cutback in library hours, patrons can still enjoy 37 open hours per week, more than at many community libraries.

"The funding cut is kind of a shame," Ms. Patten said, "because for us, it's more than a job. We all worked so hard to get into this beautiful new building, and now, four years later, this happens. The board and I can only hope it is temporary."

St. Ignace Public Library Hours

Effective Friday, May 1
Monday: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (previously 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
Tuesday: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (previously 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
Wednesday: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. (previously 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.)
Thursday: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. (previously 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.)
Friday: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (previously 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.)
Saturday: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. (previously 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.)

St. Ignace Public Library Penal Fine History

(Provided by Cindy Patten)
1989 - $13,700
1990 - $14,900
1991 - $17,500
1992 - $24,900 (first year
St. Ignace and Moran Twp.
funds received)
1993 - $28,700
1994 - $50,000
1995 - $49,800
1996 - $46,900
1997 - $79,100
1998 - $75,500
1999 - $73,300
2000 - $73,500
2001 - $90,200
2002 - $72,400
2003 - $58,900
2004 - $56,700
2005 - $60,600
2006 - $63,300
2007 - $59,400
2008 - $52,000
2009 - $36,400 projected

92nd District Court Filings 2005 to 2008

(Provided by Judge Beth Gibson)
2005 - 6,489 all filings combined; 5,199 traffic filings
2006 - 5,321 all filings combined; 4,075 traffic filings
2007 - 4,513 all filings combined; 3,360 traffic filings
2008 - 4,099 all filings combined; 2,777 traffic filings