GREAT FALLS — The Great Falls Public Library Board of Trustees voted Thursday evening to approve a counter-proposal to a city plan to reduce the library’s funding.
The vote was 3-1, with Trustee Noelle Johnson against. Trustee Anne Bulger was absent.
The board’s proposal would reduce the library funding by 2.5 mills, or about $300,000 annually.
The vote during a special library board meeting on Thursday caps months of negotiation over the future of seven mills of funding that have been part of library funding through an agreement made in 1993.
Those mills are separate from the funding increase that voters approved in 2023, though library representatives have said that the 2023 campaign was based on keeping the seven mills in place. The library also gave back $350,000 in city subsidies as part of the successful 2023 campaign.
Library Director Susie McIntyre said on Thursday that losing some of the mills would mean cuts to staff, library hours and programming, but losing all seven of the mills would be more severe.
“We’d basically then be giving back pretty much half of our increase, and so we wouldn’t be able to meet our promises,” she said. “The board would have to make some really hard decisions on what they would have to cut.”
Representatives from the city administration and the library met multiple times in the spring and summer. According to a summary from Bill Bronson, who represented the library group as an attorney, both sides of the negotiation gave up a little to reach their proposals.
“We’d basically then be giving back pretty much half of our increase, and so we wouldn’t be able to meet our promises.”
Great Falls Public Library Director Susie McIntyre
The city proposed a final offer to reduce the seven mills to 3.5 in fiscal years 2026 and 2027 and no mills after that. This setup would erase the seven mills from library funding after 2027.
The library contingent decided to present a counterproposal to the library board. That proposal reduces the seven mills to 4.5 for as long as the agreement is renewed.
Both parties agreed to a term that ends in the 2029 fiscal year. Both proposals also agree to change the management structure of the library director position to serve as an administrative liaison to the city rather than a de facto department head, which is the current setup.
Public comment at the special library board meeting included former Mayor Bob Kelly, who said this was his first public meeting attendance since leaving the public office last year.
Kelly said the city was grateful to get $350,000 in general funding in 2023 as a result of the successful library levy vote. He said the city’s public safety funding need is dire, but he disagreed that it should come from the library.
“I urge you to stay with this motion and present that to the city, knowing that it is still going to be negotiated further at the public meeting,” Kelly said.
The ball is now in the city commission’s court to take the library board’s recommendation, follow the city’s recommendation or seek more negotiation.
Earlier this week, library supporters organized a demonstration in the lobby of the Mansfield Center for the Performing Arts while it rained outside on the steps.
“What they’re doing is not unlawful,” local activist Jasmine Taylor said. “It’s unethical.”
Organizers handed out signs and urged attendees to speak during the evening’s city commission meeting.
The event was enough to bring out Berkely Rose, 21, to their first public rally for a cause. Not too long ago, Rose was homeless and was in unsafe situations at times.
“During those moments, the library was a safe haven,” Rose said.
More than a place to go, Rose found the library to be a place to learn and grow during a tough time. This week, they wanted to show up for the library in person. Rose spoke later that evening during a string of public comments about library funding.
While many comments accused the city of subverting the 2023 library levy vote, the mills under consideration aren’t among those approved last year. The funding that voters approved in 2023 brought a total of 17 mills to the library as part of the city charter.
It’s a separate seven mills, which were part of a 1993 agreement between the library and the city, that have been under review. But the stance of library supporters is that the 2023 levy was based on an understanding that the levy vote would add to the seven mills, not replace them.
“The levy numbers were predicated upon the understanding that the city would leave intact the seven mills of funding that’s contractually obligated since the early ‘90s,” resident Sharon Stearns said during public comment.
Another commenter at Tuesday’s meeting, Jeni Dodd, argued that the seven mills of the 1993 agreement weren’t meant to get automatic renewal every year, as they have for more than three decades. Dodd was a member of the Public Safety Advisory Committee and lobbied for those seven mills to be reallocated for public safety purposes as part of the group’s recommendations.
Future action by the city commission will be done at a public meeting, though Commissioner Rick Tryon indicated on Tuesday that this may not happen until October due to some expected absences.
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