Kansas and Libraries

***WARNING - RANT AHEAD***

I attended a focus group last week, the purpose of which was to help form a list of what is essential in a database package for Kansas.  Sound pretty dry, right?

It was.  But there was an interesting side to it that really wasn't talked about until the very end.  The question on everyone's mind was, "How are we going to pay for this?"  And the answer was, "We don't know, the money has all gone."

So how did this happen?  Well, first off the economy went in the tank a couple of years ago.  So, cost cutting became even more of a mantra in the legislature.  And the cutting was done with a sword rather than a scalpel.  So far, from a library perspective everything REALLY useful has been cut to the bone.  Not only was state aid reduced (direct aid to libraries) for what I think was the 4th year in a row, several statewide programs were massacred.  So this year, Kan-Ed had its funding slashed.  This is basically because big telecoms don't want the downward price pressure on their services.  You see, Kan-Ed provides low- or no-cost T-1 connections to public entities like libraries that can't otherwise afford "high speed" Internet.  Now, I take issue with the definition of "high speed" Internet as our providers use it, but that's a rant for another day.  Unfortunately, by slashing Kan-Ed's funding, over 50% of the funds for statewide databases - these tools provided here - disappeared.  And in the next budget year, they are gone all together - nearly $1 million.

Now, bear in mind that all of the cutting, I was told directly, was to reduce the "government footprint".  And, that ,"We're not looking to increase your [the library's] costs or reduce access..."

So, can you guess what happened?  EXACTLY.  Our direct costs, because we lost the power of purchasing in a state-wide contract, have increased and our ability to provide access to information has already and will continue to be drastically reduced over this year and next.

Lest you think that nothing was done to enlighten our state government as to the results of these actions, librarians and others across the state wrote, emailed, talked directly to, and testified in the state house about these matters.  Only, instead of listening to feedback from knowledgeable sources, no provisions were made to transfer funds from Kan-Ed to the State Library to administer state-wide tools and services.  Instead, contracts will lapse, work will have to be repeated, and much more struggle for funds will have to be made in order to even BEGIN negotiating new contracts - and worst of all, library service and credibility will be damaged.

You may not know this, but the Kan-Ed funds I have mentioned so often are actually "Kansas Universal Service Fund" (KUSF) monies.  They are collected by the Kansas Corporation Commission and WILL CONTINUE to be collected at the same rate as before.  The legislature merely choose to not allocate them to Kan-Ed.  Taxes (or in this case service fees) are not any lower because of this action.

What can you do?  Contact your legislator and ask her or him to allocate to the State Library KUSF funds not given to Kan-Ed to provide for state-wide library services.  Kan-Ed funding went from $10 million per year to $6 million.  That means there are $4 million available - even a quarter of that amount would allow us to restore lost services and take pressure off the State Library so that they might be able to stave off further cuts to direct aid or other services.

[Wipes spittle from corner of mouth]