The last year has been a roller coaster ride for the Great Falls Library. In February 2023, the city commission voted unanimously to place a levy on the ballot to increase funding for the library. The proposed levy was to raise $1.5 million for needed facility updates and to expand hours and services. The levy passed after an acrimonious campaign with the right-wing censorship crowd vehemently opposing the levy.
Commissioners Ignore Public Support For The Library
Contrast the public support for the library to the resounding rejection of the proposed safety levy to fund police and fire protection. The safety levy was a pet project of Commissioner Rick Tryon. After the elections, which demonstrated public support for the library and rejection of the safety levy, it seems that Tryon, Commissioner Joe McKenney and Mayor Cory Reeves have it in for the library, playing games with board appointments and finally reducing funding for the library and giving that money to public safety. https://wtf406.com/2024/11/city-council-takes-money-from-library-after-the-public-voted-to-increase-funding/
Opponents of taking money from the library have pointed out repeatedly that the small amount of money taken from the library would do very little to meet the $30 million for projected needs for public safety in Great Falls. But it amounted to a cut of almost 27% of the library’s total budget. The majority of the commission (Tryon, McKenney, and Reeves) was undeterred and took the funding anyway.
$1 Million To Replace Seats at The Mansfield Center?
Given that history, many people were surprised to see that the city commission allocated almost $1 million , almost three times the amount taken from the library’s funding, to replace the seats in The Mansfield Center. Most of us understand that budgets for local government are complicated and involve different sources of funding. Some of the money the city administers can be moved around and some cannot. Replacing the seats is part of a larger project and funded in large part by the State-Local Infrastructure Partnership Act which the Montana Legislature approved in 2023. In addition, tax increment district financing is also part of the package. But even with those sources funding it was still short. The city staff recommended moving forward with the full project anyway, despite the overage of almost $360,000. That “overage,” for which no clear source of funding was identified, is more than the amount removed from the library’s budget.
But all the byzantine maneuvering of public funding aside, this simply demonstrates that the attack on the library by Tryon, McKenney and Reeves was more about their apparent problems with the library and pandering to a small pro-censorship minority in Great Falls than it was meeting public safety needs.