Valerie Parnell, Seminole County Watch columnist

Talk to most people about the Seminole County public library system and they will tell you that it is in serious need of an upgrade.

 

There are not enough books on the shelves, there are not enough shelves for books, there is not enough space for computer terminals providing Internet and other research access, and the parking lots are constantly full to capacity.

 

In short, the buildings are too small, both in terms of what they can store and how many people they can handle at one time.  Space shortage creates a shortage of available resources, including not only materials but also community meeting rooms and similar space.

 

It all adds up to a public library system that needs to be expanded to meet the demands of Seminole County residents.

 

It is obvious that residents of Seminole County value our library system.  In Seminole, 73 percent of us have public library cards.  Compare that to 29 percent in Orange County, and you get the idea.

 

Undoubtedly, Seminole residents' commitment to using library services reflects the elevated per capita demographics of our county. 

 

It has long been an oft-repeated badge of honor for county residents and leaders alike that Seminole residents have higher incomes and education, on average, than any of our surrounding Central Florida neighbors. 

 

Such pride has also extended to the perceived quality of Seminole County schools being head-and-shoulders above all others in our area.

 

But despite our income and education, we have not had the wisdom to allow us to see that an elevated quality of life here cannot be sustained on the "cheap."  Yet that is how we have sought to do it, and it is catching up with us.

 

Seminole County commissioners are in agreement with just about everyone else that our libraries need considerable improvements, and the funding to make them. 

 

Funding the libraries out of the general fund, as we have been doing, is leaving them lacking.  Other demands are considered more urgent priorities, pushing the libraries to the bottom of the budgetary pecking order.

 

To raise the library system to average standards will require an estimated $54 million.  That would be the cost of replacing four current branches with buildings of 40,000 square feet apiece, compared with the current 12,000 square feet those branches now have in Oviedo, Sanford, Lake Mary and Longwood.  An additional branch would also be added, most likely in Winter Springs.

 

Last year, the library system received $5.3 million from the general fund.  That's one-tenth of what is needed to make the library system what it should be in meeting the needs of Seminole County residents.

 

A proposal has been bandied around to let voters consider improving a half-cent tax increase that would dedicate funds to library services.  The question for county commissioners is whether they want to advance such a proposal to the voters. 

 

Once again, as always, commissioners are putting their reelection considerations ahead of providing leadership for the county.  On the one hand, they agree library services are severely lacking.  On the other, they lack the gumption to tell the voters that someone has to pay for the services that a first-class library system would provide.

 

Commission chairman Carlton Henley has said he is against a dedicated funding source, such as would be provided by committed tax revenue.  Henley says that would take away flexibility from the commissioners in spending money on other issues they may deem more important.

 

Sadly, it is the commissioners' holding and exercising of such flexibility that has helped make Seminole's public libraries so lacking.  This issue arose in exactly the same fashion almost a decade ago, in 1997, when the same concerns and needs were cited regarding library services.

 

Commissioners then enlisted the aid of an outside consultant, who specified that a stable funding source was needed to fund the library's needs.

 

Commissioner Randy Morris said then, as he continues to indicate now, that "obviously, we're grossly underfunding our library system, particularly for a county as wealthy as ours."

 

Then-commissioner Darryl McLain publicly said then, in a reflection of what commissioners are privately saying now, that "we might find we need to go back to the ballot box to get approval for a dedicated funding source from the citizens for our libraries."

 

In perhaps the clearest indication that nothing has really changed, or been accomplished, since this was last a crisis nearly a decade ago, Commissioner Dick VanDerWeide's solution at the time was to form a task force to study the issue.

 

Then, just as now, our commissioners are so adept at defining the problem yet so afraid to do what needs to be done to actually solve it.