NorthEscambia.com reports that County Administrator Randy Oliver plans to ask the county commissioners to withhold a portion of their funding for the library system in order to hire the city’s library employees to fully staff libraries in the county so that staffing at all library branches in the unincorporated areas will be at the same level as the branch in the city with the greatest operating hours.
In its 2012-13 budget, Escambia County cut its library contribution by 5-percent or $165,000 from the previous year. The city of Pensacola, which runs the county-wide library system, therefore, cut operational hours by one-third, reducing part-time employees by 30 percent, subscriptions by 15 percent and book purchases by 85 percent.
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