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When the state budget was finalized, Maggie Allbee got a surprise. Instead of what originally expected, the General Assembly allocated $96,541 for the Charlotte County Library System. That’s $28,541 more. And she asked to speak at the Charlotte County Board of Supervisors meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 14, requesting to keep it. 

Roughly between 25% to 35% of the library system’s budget comes from the state government. So when Allbee, who serves as executive director of the Charlotte County Library, submits her budget each year, she has to estimate how much money she believes the state will give. That’s because more often than not, the state budget isn’t finalized until the summer. This year, she requested and received $298,512 from Charlotte County and expected to get $68,000 from the state. Instead, the state ended up giving her the $96,541. 

Now the money from the state comes to the county first and supervisors have to vote to allocate it to the library. Allbee came to the current group asking that they don’t follow the procedure adopted by previous boards. 

“In the past, when the state has given the library additional funding beyond the estimate, the county has reduced its contribution by the same amount, leaving the library with no additional money,” Allbee told supervisors. She added that it seemed “standard procedure is to keep any additional state money rather than to give it to the library as intended. The money coming to the library from the state is meant to supplement the library budget, not reduce the county contribution.”

A problem for Charlotte County library

The issue is that pulling back funds does more than simply reduce the budgeted amount. It actually violates state law in some cases. According to Chapter 110 of the Virginia Code, “local operating expenditures from taxation for the library, or any library system, shall not fall below that of the previous year.” Basically, if you set a specific amount for the library in the budget of a county or town and then you try to reduce that, it’s a violation of state law. 

If this happens, the Virginia Code warns, the state can pull back all of its funding, not just a portion. Also, the county in question becomes ineligible for any further state library funding until the removed amount has been added back to the local budget. There’s an example of this very thing happening in the region. In 2008, Nottoway County’s library system lost state funding when the county reduced the budget. 

Allbee pointed out that the library system just finished its first summer reading program since COVID-19, that it helps the county in a number of ways, including providing free internet access, as well as free books, magazines and DVDs.

The current board of supervisors agreed, voting unanimously to allocate the state funds to the library system.