No libraries to close yet, but no extra funding

NO LIBRARIES will close across the City of Greater Geelong in the coming financial year but the impasse about the future of the library service goes on, with the city not willing to put in any extra funding.

About two-thirds of the 35 submissions to public question time at the city’s council meeting on Tuesday this week were about the delivery of library services.

City of Greater Geelong mayor Trent Sullivan made a lengthy statement at the start of the meeting as a collective response, saying the city did not support the closure of any libraries.

“We have also heard that you, the community, do not support the reduction of services that is currently being proposed in many forms, and we have discussed opportunities available to make sure we do not have to reach this outccome.”

Cr Sullivan said the city contributed 85 per cent of the Geelong Regional Library Corporation’s (GRLC) total budget and this was “intended to cover the operations of all libraries within the City of Greater Geelong, new and existing.”

He said the city’s $12.224 million contribution for 2023/24 equated to $44.34 per resident in Greater Geelong, which was “well above the average spend of our immediate neighbours and other large Victorian cities”, and cited $27.57 per resident in Ballarat, $25.48 per resident in Bendigo, and $30.33 per resident in Wyndham as examples.

In its draft 2023/24 budget, released earlier this month, the GRLC proposed closing the Barwon Heads, Geelong West and Highton libraries and switching Chilwell Library to an unstaffed model in response to a $1.1 million shortfall in the draft 2023/24 budget from the City of Greater Geelong.

Following considerable community backlash, the city is leaving open the possibility of taking library services in house, and a meeting between the city’s acting CEO Kaarina Phyland and GRLC chief executive officer Vanessa Schernickau last week, the three libraries will now remain open and Chilwell Library will keep being staffed in the 2023/24 financial year.

This is largely because the $356,000 in operating funding for Biyal-a Armstrong Creek Library will not be needed until that library opens from July 1, 2024.

The GRLC argues there is still a $762,000 hole in its budget, and it will be forced to introduce “significant service reductions” from July 1 this year, including no libraries open in Greater Geelong on Saturday afternoons or Sundays with the exception of the Geelong Library & Heritage Centre.

Library services in the GRLC’s other municipalities – Surf Coast, Queenscliffe and Golden Plains – are unaffected.

Submissions to the city’s draft budget closed on Wednesday this week, and in a last-ditch effort, the GRLC sent out a mass email to its users on Tuesday night urging them to support funding for libraries.

“We are calling on City of Greater Geelong to continue with the funding model that has worked well for decades, and provide operating funds for the new Geelong libraries, allowing us to deliver an essential service to the community, now and into the future,” the email stated.

Submission to the GRLC’s draft 2023/24 budget close on June 9.