The San Jose Mercury News posted a story originating from the Daily Sparks Tribune. Sparks is connected to Reno as Henderson is connected to Las Vegas. Reno and Sparks are located in Washoe County while Las Vegas and Henderson are located in Clark County.
The county library director in Washoe County is getting ready to take cuts to the county commission. Current estimates peg the cuts at $846,000. There currently is a hiring freeze with four unfilled positions and public access computers that break down will reportedly not be replaced or repaired.
The Washoe County Library System website can be found at http://libwww.washoecounty.us/.
Silver State Libraries
Hopefully this will be contained in the north where I believe the libraries are funded directly by the county. Here in Clark County we have separate funding districts for the libraries – Las Vegas/Clark County, Henderson & North Las Vegas (this may be tied to the city). So far plans for expansion in all three have been slowed, but hiring to meet the needs of the newly finished/acquired libraries are being done to a minimal staffing level.
I am all too aware of what can happen in city/county funded libraries – Mesa, Arizona is a key example. New and old libraries were closed with only the main building kept open on vastly curtailed hours. The residents have difficulty even using the library as it is only open M-F 9-5.
Clark County is weird in this regard
Clark County does have a county library that serves the City of Las Vegas and the unincorporated areas. That is of practical necessity due to the townships of Paradise and Winchester being landlocked within the City of Las Vegas. A similar situation arises with the merged policing agency known as the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department that is the combination of what was the county sheriff’s department and Las Vegas city police.
HDPL, NLVPL, and BCPL all have interesting problems with funding. Property tax bases aren’t the highest for them and the lion’s share of state funding goes to LVCCLD instead. Considering that Henderson has more population than Las Vegas but Henderson residents do not have full service access with LVCCLD, this is a problem that will affect pretty much all of Nevada.
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Stephen Michael Kellat, Host, LISTen
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