The Flagler County Library Board of Trustees has been chaired by Jim Ulsamer for a long time. In response to impending service and hours reductions at the Palm Coast branch library as the county gets ready to launch the Nexus Center library in Bunnell in December, he submitted a letter to the County Commission on June 27. This is an adaptation of that letter.
By Jim Ulsamer
I went to the library to check out a book on June 6. There was hardly any parking available when I got to the Palm Coast branch. It turned out that over 300 locals had assembled to take in the festivities around the launch of the Summer Reading Program at 2:30 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon.
I saw a small girl walking to her car with her mother, clutching eight or ten books, as I entered the library. The girl’s expression of excitement is only comparable to a child’s when they see gifts under the Christmas tree. Ironically, I did not recognize any elected officials at this occasion. The busiest early voting location is the library. During that time, elected politicians are constantly present to solicit votes. Given what some of the library patrons had been saying about the institution just days prior, why not support the same patrons who voted in their favor?
Two commissioners questioned the staffing needs of the new Nexus Center library in Bunnell, which is scheduled to open in December, during a protracted budget discussion during a County Commission session on May 28. One suggestion was to stop building. As if she could handle all of the duties of the suggested staff additions, another stated that she would not accept any new hiring and demanded the removal of the library director, who was also an assistant county administrator.
These were emotional responses motivated by dissatisfaction and made without fully comprehending the nuances of library staffing and funding. To further comprehend this problem, some background information is useful.
The library employed 21 full-time staff members in 2006, the year before I was elected to the Library Board of Trustees. The state reduced subsidies by $225,000 in 2007. Flagler County decided not to make up the money that was lost. The library curtailed its hours of operation and laid off four employees.
Unfazed, Library Director Holly Albanese conducted research and submitted an application to have the Flagler County Library serve as a passport application center. She succeeded. Albanese cross-trained staff to meet the criteria set by the U.S. Department of State to oversee the passport acceptance program while working with a reduced workforce. She started the program with a lot of praise. A national prize for innovation was given to our library system.
Since then, the program has generated over $1.7 million for the library, and by the conclusion of the upcoming fiscal year, it is expected to reach the $2 million milestone. Although capital upgrades have accounted for the majority of the passport program’s revenue, money is fungible, and that $2 million covers the new library’s additional staffing needs for more than five years.
Director Albanese was asked to take on extra duties involving special projects, legislative relations, and acting Human Resources Director in addition to establishing this stable funding stream for the library. Albanese’s adoption of those responsibilities saved at least a full headcount, perhaps to the tune of at least $75,000 per year. That was DOGE before it evolved into its current acronym. Additionally, the county received a number of grants from the government. Albanese is not the only factor.
Let’s take a look at library personnel. The total number of employees in the library system will rise to 24 in order to staff the new library in Bunnell. Remember, it had 20 employees in 2006. The county’s population grew by 84% over 20 years, from 76,000 to 140,000, according to data from the University of Florida’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research.
In the upcoming budget, county government staffing—excluding law enforcement—rose from 343 to 467, a 37 percent rise. The Palm Coast government’s workforce grew by 49%, from 395 to 590 employees.
The number of employees at the library will have grown by four, or 20 percent, by December. We should applaud if there is another department in the county that has demonstrated that level of efficiency.
To put things in perspective, we must acknowledge that, excluding minors whose books are checked out using their parents’ library cards, Flagler County has more over 56,000 active library cardholders. To appropriately reflect active library use, we delete our library cardholder measurement every year. In addition to enjoying the library’s services, those 56,000 cardholders collectively make up the county’s most popular service. Therefore, don’t 56,000 library patrons find the measures to restrict the library offensive?
The Palm Coast library and a tiny, 3,000-square-foot satellite branch in Bunnell were part of the county’s collection back in 2006. SMA Family Access was housed in the Bunnell branch building, which was returned to the county in 2021. On State Road 100, the Bunnell branch was then forced into a 1,100-square-foot storefront. The move was undertaken with the promise that a new facility will be opened in Bunnell, even though the current one is completely unsuitable for carrying out the majority of library operations. Thus, while the county’s population increased by 64,000 during the past 20 years, the amount of space available for library services actually decreased by 1,900 square feet.
The county will have two library locations that can provide a comprehensive range of services when the Nexus center eventually opens this autumn. After nine years of planning, the new site was approved by numerous previous panels, current and former county governments, and Friends of the Library and library trustees.
St. Johns has six library locations in other counties, two more are being built, and there are plans for additional growth and innovative use of county resources to bring the total to ten. It should be noted that St. Johns County consistently ranks as the state’s best school district by all standards and has held an A grade for many years. In eleven of the last twelve years, Flagler County has had a B-rated district.
There are fourteen libraries in Volusia County. There are five libraries in Putnam County, which isn’t typically thought of as an affluent county. The State of Florida determined that Flagler was the county with the greatest demand for library services, which led to the library being eligible for a $500,000 building grant seven times. It remains thus.
In light of this, it is confusing to attack the upcoming opening of the Nexus Center and library. It lacks understanding of what the library is all about. It has not been beneficial that the library board and the present County Commission are not on the same page.
A liaison and an alternate are designated to the library. For the past 10 years, Commissioners Sullivan and then Donald O Brien regularly attended our monthly Library Trustee meetings. They both supported library services. Since then, both have resigned from the Commission. (Sullivan joined the Palm Coast City Council as an appointed member.) On Dec. 2, the commission named a new liaison and alternate.
Six trustee meetings have been held. Neither has attended any of the meetings. We can operate quite effectively without a commissioner s presence. But it is often helpful to obtain the perspective of a sitting commissioner. More importantly, that commissioner develops a better understanding of the library, and often a level of empathy for the work being done. A commissioner attending the trustee meetings would have been aware of the staffing requirement in the grant for the new library well before the May 28 commission workshop . Those details are covered by the library director during our meetings.
As an advisory board to the commission, the Flagler County Library Board of Trustees provides input on the annual budget of the library, including headcounts, services and library hours. The board also recommends that the commission adopt a library patron s perspective by becoming more involved and better informed about the operation of the library. Here are some suggestions:
I have full confidence that the library will do its best to maintain service levels within the constraints of the budget and that the current proposed operating restrictions are the best that could be crafted. But there will still be a reduction in service levels.
After the opening of the new library in December, the Palm Coast location will still contain more than 70 percent of the total library space in the county.Cutting staff and reducing operating hours by 23 percentis going to have a big, negative impact on service levels to Palm Coast residents. A working woman or man accustomed to going to the library after work, perhaps with their children in tow, may find the doors closed. Starting the week off with a Monday visit to the library will not be an option. Residents of the barrier island, having no local library service and unaware of the reduced operating hours, may make the trek only to find the library doors locked. Patrons accustomed to enjoying any of the fine programs the library offers may see some of them cancelled due to reduced staffing and operating hours.
It should not have come to this.
This a watershed moment for Flagler County. The county commission has a choice. It can champion this much-needed and long-overdue improvement in the quality of life for its residents as one of the most accessible and enriching community and cultural assets we can be proud of, and as an indispensable partner with Flagler County schools. Or it can go down the narrower path of limiting access to library service, and in so doing, limiting far more than just library services.
We ask that you objectively examine all of the facts and choose wisely.
Jim Ulsamer, a Hammock resident, has been on the Library Board of Trustees since 2006, most of those years as chair.
