Why Should Delaware Care?
While independent libraries in Sussex County often serve as hubs for community resources, they are also strapped for money. In the wake of a failed campaign by library leaders to increase the county’s library tax, an outside consultant has been hired to study the budget woes. It remains to be seen, however, whether the study will result in a funding increase, and what say the libraries will have in the process.
Following nearly a year of pleas from independent libraries in Sussex County for more government financial support, county officials have hired an outside consultant to examine the libraries’ funding structure and role within their communities.
The study comes in response to a failed effort earlier this year by independent library leaders to lobby Sussex County Council to raise the county’s library tax rate — its share of the libraries’ funding structure.
As it currently stands, the funding structure almost always leaves large gaps in the independent libraries’ annual budgets — deficits of anywhere from 13% to 52%.
Council members opted against the libraries’ requested tax hike, pointing to resident blowback from the property tax increases spurred by last year’s property reassessment and budget requests by other departments.
Instead, county leaders hired consulting group Berry Dunn to more thoroughly study the problem before making any changes.
“Any request to increase taxes is something the county takes seriously and believes should be carefully evaluated before making a decision,” Sussex County Finance Director Gina Jennings wrote in a message to Spotlight Delaware.
Consultants began working this month and will continue through early 2027.
Independent library directors said the study is a step in the right direction, but they are skeptical that the county-initiated study will give the libraries a sufficient opportunity to share their experience and share their funding needs.
“I do worry that because these studies don’t get done very often, they’re not going to get the full picture,” said Philip Hartmeyer, director of the Frankford Library. “If you’re going to do this, you have to do it thoroughly.”
How are libraries funded in Delaware?
Delaware has two different funding structures for county-run and independent libraries.
County-run libraries are funded entirely by taxes collected at the county level, while independent libraries, which operate as nonprofit organizations, are financed through a mix of county funding, state funding and the library’s own fundraising.
State funds make up about 15% of an independent library’s total budget. While the goal is for county funding to make up the remaining 85%, Sussex County’s library tax typically only covers about half a library’s budget. Directors are then left to close annual funding gaps.
For example, the Selbyville Library had to come up with roughly $200,000 in funds, or nearly 40% of its operating budget, for the current fiscal year, library director Kelly Kline said.
Eleven of Sussex County’s 14 libraries are independent.
This spring, they launched a campaign to raise the county’s annual library tax rate from $0.0023 per $100 of assessed property value to $0.0046 per $100, or from roughly $4 to $23 annually to $9 to $46.
This rate increase would have shrunk the funding gap libraries must make up to only about 10% of their annual budget.
While the county council declined to adopt the library tax rate increase as a part of its fiscal year 2027 budget, Jennings said hiring a consultant was the county’s way of addressing the libraries’ request for more county dollars.
She said the study’s results will determine how the county proceeds.
“With the recent request potentially increasing the county’s contribution to closer to 90% of [independent library] funding, it raises important questions about the county’s future role and level of involvement in the overall operations and financial oversight of the independent libraries,” Jennings said.
Library leaders skeptical
While county leaders described the study as a valuable step toward addressing the libraries’ funding difficulties, library directors said they have concerns about how the study is being conducted.
Berry Dunn, the consulting firm hired to complete the study, will speak to library employees, users and non-library user residents to “evaluate the request for additional library funding and better understand the long-term needs of the countywide library system,” Jennings said.
The project will cost the county $100,000.
At the Aug. 19 meeting of the Sussex County Library Advisory Board, County Librarian Rachel Lynch said the consultant will only communicate directly with county staff, who will then give progress reports to the library directors through monthly advisory board meetings.
Get Involved
The Sussex County Library Advisory Board is set to meet and provide more information about the library consultant project at 10 a.m. on Sept. 16 in the Sussex County Administrative Building, located at 2 The Circle in Georgetown.
Some library directors, though, told Spotlight Delaware they are disappointed that there is not at least one independent library director represented on the project team alongside county staff, in order to better convey the libraries’ experience to the consultant.
“If [the consultant] is paid for by the county, and the project team is 100% county representation, my concern is for us independent libraries,” Kline, the Selbyville director, told Spotlight Delaware.
County staff, however, said this structure is typical.
The county hired an outside analyst to look at volunteer fire departments, and the fire department staff were not directly involved in that study, Jennings said.
Hartmeyer, the Frankford director, also said there is considerable nuance to the needs of the independent libraries in different parts of the county, like Lewes versus Seaford or Bridgeville, that the consultant will have a hard time understanding in a brief study.
“My concern is whether they’re going to get the full context of the constituency that is served by the libraries,” he said.
Nonetheless, the library directors said they view the hiring of the consultant as a step in the direction toward more funding and a better recognition by the county of the role they serve in their communities.
“If things don’t change, we absolutely will have to start doing less,” Kline said. “I don’t think that’s something our communities want.”
Maggie Reynolds is a Report for America corps member and Spotlight Delaware reporter who covers rural communities in Delaware. Your donation to match our Report for America grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://spotlightdelaware.org/support/.
