Federal:
Last week President Obama sent his last budget request to Congress. Librarians and library advocates were disappointed that funding for the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) was suggested to decrease by over $500,000. Other proposed cuts included a $950,000 reduction for the Grants to States program, a $200,000 cut for Native American Library Services, and a $500,000 cut for the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian program. In a statement, ALA President Sari Feldman said, “We are truly disappointed that the President’s budget does not recognize the value libraries bring to our country. Every day America’s libraries create individual opportunity and community progress by cutting federal funds to libraries, the President’s budget is making it more difficult for libraries to do their job.” Hopefully, the budget that is eventually passed will contain more funding for libraries and library services. For more information see the District Dispatch.
State:
Governor Rauner gave a budget address this week in which he still pushed his “turnaround agenda” and also proposed an alternative – that the state would pass a $32 billion “lump sum” budget that he could spend at his discretion. This would place the funding for library services in spending limbo with no guarantees as to how much libraries would be allocated. This seems unlikely; according to ILA: “the most likely action by the General Assembly will be to pass a budget with specific programmatic line items and ask the governor to either support additional revenues, or line item veto specific program funding. Based on the experiences of the past year, neither course of action seems likely to resolve the deadlock.”