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A recommendation from the Mayor’s Fiscal Stability Task Force to cut $500,000 from the library’s budget drew comments from attendees who felt the task force should have had more community representation.
Community members filled Springfield’s City Council chamber on the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 9, for a town hall with the mayor to discuss the city’s finances.
The city organized the meeting to talk about recommendations from Mayor Sean VanGordon’s Fiscal Stability Task Force. The mayor organized the task force earlier this year to look at the city’s budget and identify options for addressing the city’s growing general fund operating deficit.
The city had encouraged town hall attendees to read the task force report in advance of the meeting.
One task force recommendation: reduce the library budget by $500,000. That recommendation has drawn ire from some residents who have commented at recent city council meetings.
Most of the comments and questions at the town hall on Tuesday were about the library.
Some attendees argued the task force did not fully represent Springfield residents and that membership was dominated by the business community. Others wondered how many of the members live in Springfield and use the library.
The 12-person task force included people who are affiliated with Oregon Community Credit Union, PeaceHealth, International Paper, CDC Management Corp., Merete Hotel Management, Swanson Group, Springfield Chamber of Commerce, Chambers Construction, Aventi Group and multicraft union UA Local 290, according to the report. Two people are listed as community volunteers, one of whom is former state Sen. Lee Beyer.
VanGordon said all the task force members volunteered their time. The city paid two consultants to help with the project: Funk/Levis & Associates facilitated the meetings and ECOnorthwest provided analysis and research support and authored the report.
Anne Marie Levis of Funk/Levis said seven members of the 12-person task force live in Springfield and all work in Springfield.
The mayor said he chose the panel members and was looking for people who had expertise in finance and could provide technical advice.
“These people were not just picked randomly,” VanGordon said. “They were picked and they had links to our community.”
The mayor said no decisions have been made about the task force recommendations, and the city council will consider community input as it determines strategies to balance the budget. He said the council is trying to make decisions by the end of the year.
“We’re not limited by what’s actually in the report at all,” VanGordon said. “It is perfectly logical that by the end of this we could change wholesale portions of it.”
The mayor said there is some interest on the council in creating an operating levy for the library, which was not a recommendation of the task force. A levy would need to be decided by voters. VanGordon said he wasn’t sure a levy proposal would be ready by the primary election in May 2026.
The mayor said the city doesn’t yet know how much of the library’s budget could be cut and what the consequences would be.
“We don’t know what the cut means. We know what it could mean. We know it could mean closing for a day (once a week). We know it could be changing programs,” VanGordon said. “One place where your feedback matters a lot is, if hours are the most important thing to you, please tell us that. If programs are the most important thing to you, please tell us that. There will come a point when we ask our city manager, what are our actual options to breathe some life into this, and knowing where you want to go as a community would help that conversation tremendously.”
Betty Goracke Olguin with the Springfield Public Library Foundation told Lookout Eugene-Springfield in an email that any cuts to library funding would reduce staff, hours and the book budget.
Some commenters said they would rather see cuts to other parts of the city’s budget. VanGordon said the report shows the city is frugal. He also said the city is required to balance its budget every year.
“Doing nothing is not an option,” the mayor said. “We don’t get to be the federal government here and borrow a bunch of money.”
One commenter brought up public safety overtime, saying the report shows actual overtime was much higher than budgeted in fiscal year 2024, especially for police. VanGordon said police overtime is trending down as the city continues to add staff to the department.
“I’ll tell you what my opinion is here,” the mayor said. “When we do the final direction to the city manager, managing around overtime costs will be something that will be on it. Not because we don’t have it under control, but because we want to be good fiscal stewards and continue to keep this stuff front of mind.”
Heather Millehrer-Huerta, a member of the library advisory board, said during the town hall the Springfield library is one of the lowest funded libraries in the state for a community of its size.
Another commenter said Oregon is below the national average for student literacy, and that Springfield can’t afford to cut its library services when children are in a literacy crisis.
VanGordon said Springfield is going to have a library at the end of this process.
“I want to make sure you guys hear me say that,” he said.
One person in the audience said the library is not going to look like the library the city has now with the proposed cuts.
Library Director Emily David told Lookout Eugene-Springfield she was happy there was an opportunity for the community to ask questions and make comments about the effects the task force recommendations would have on the library.
The city is asking residents to complete a survey seeking feedback on the recommendations from the task force.
The city council is also considering a payroll tax with a 0.1% tax rate, split between employers and employees, to create revenue. Some residents have said they would be interested in paying a higher payroll tax rate to save the library from budget cuts.