Local libraries are sounding the alarm that the Ohio House of Representatives proposed two-year budget includes significant cuts for the Public Library Fund.
Gov. Mike DeWine’s proposed budget increased funding for the Public Library Fund to 1.75% of the General Revenue Fund, but the House’s proposed budget changes that to a line-item amount for each year.
“It eliminates the language that guarantees the Public Library Fund," Ohio Library Council Executive Director Michelle Francis said.
That’s a more than $100 million loss for public libraries and abolishes the Public Library Fund completely, which means public libraries would lose the certainty of getting funding every two years from the state.
"That means 93 libraries out of our 251 would see an immediate cut in funding July 1," she said, "and they would have to make immediate cuts or adjustments to services."
DeWine's proposal of 1.75% of the General Revenue Fund would have generated $531.7 million in 2026 and $549.1 million in 2027. The House's allocations for public libraries are $485 million for 2026 and $495 million for 2027. This year's revenue for the Public Library Fund of $489.3 million.
The cut comes at a time when the public needs libraries more than ever, Tuscarawas County Public Library Director Michelle McMorrow Ramsell said.
“We know any time where we’re in a period of tight budget personally, that’s when libraries are there for the communities," she said, "so that’s when we have a statement that we say here that you can borrow more than you can buy.”
On top of the state cuts, Tuscarawas may also lose grant funding for summer programs from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, McMorrow Ramsell said, where nearly all employees were put on administrative leave this week by the Trump administration. Dozens of other libraries in Ohio were also set to receive grants, she said.
Tuscarawas' summer programming that was going to be funded by the grant, an art class for older adults, will likely still be able to go on as planned due to a donation the library received this week, she said.
The state has also been waning in its financial support of libraries, McMorrow Ramsell said.
"Last year at the end of the calendar year, we actually received less public library fund, state support to Ohio's libraries than the year 2000, which was 25 years ago," she said.
In 2000, funding for the Public Library Fund was $491 million.
For the Portage County District Library, cuts in state funding would mean slowing down on expanding services, Director Jon Harris said. Until 2021, the library was almost fully funded by the Public Library Fund, but voters passed the library's first local levy that year, allowing the library to look at expansion. Since then, library staff have opened a new branch in Brimfield and relaunched a book mobile that allows residents in more rural parts of the county without physical library access to library materials.
"We've got folks coming in and utilizing the Brimfield branch very regularly, and there's been an incredible amount of support for pretty much every one of the stops that that bookmobile makes every week," Harris said. "It's been extremely positive so far."
The cut would impact the nearly 50 libraries throughout the state without local levies much more, he said.
"It's a direct 1:1 ratio of less money coming into them, less money in their budget," Harris said.
The proposed state budget also includes a provision that states "material related to sexual orientation or gender identity or expression" must be moved to a part of the library "not primarily open to the view of minors."
"It would be quite a monumental administrative task to go through a library's entire collection and to try to figure out and discern within different titles things that someone might think falls under that definition," Francis said.
Libraries for the most part do not have an adult section inaccessible to kids, Harris said.
“Almost presumes that we’re going to string up a curtain like an old school video store," he said.
Additionally, it's not the library's job to decide what is appropriate for patrons, Harris said.
"We believe it is up to our patrons to decide for themselves and their families what is appropriate," he said.
With the current wording, Harris does not know how his library system could comply with the provision, he said.
"I'm not entirely sure what the impact of something like this would be," he said, "because it is so unwieldly that compliance with it would be honestly absurd."
Harris said the provision is "vague to the point of being entirely unenforceable."
"Sexual orientation includes straight folks as well as those that identify as LGBTQ," he said. "Gender identity involves cisgender folks just as much as it does transgender folks."
Changes to libraries' organizational system would also be confusing to patrons, Harris said.
"I suppose if somebody is looking for cookbooks in the adult section they might have to stumble past the 'My Body Book for Girls' earlier in the 600s," he said.
The budget also has a provision that reduces the length of terms for library trustees from seven years to four, which could cause continuity issues to library leadership, Harris said.
"This is one where I'm not entirely sure why it's something they decided to include in the budget," Harris said. "I'm not crazy about it, because it is nice to have board members with a longer term length."
Francis also does not know what spurred the term length provision in the budget, she said.
Library leaders are advocating that the House change the funding back to DeWine’s original proposal. The House is poised for a full vote on the bill next week before it goes to the Senate and then has to be approved by DeWine.
