Geographic Equity Assessment Complete, 6/24/2021
Lake County Library District Director Amy Hutchinson prepared a Geographic Equity Assessment that was reviewed by the Library Budget Committee as a part of the FY 2021-22 budget process. The assessment and the Budget Committee found that, overall, library services were distributed well across the different library locations. The library board is working on a plan to prioritize needs as additional revenue becomes available.
“The budget committee, board, and I were all very pleased to see that we found that services were generally equitable on a number of measures even though we have not done this type of assessment in the past” said Amy Hutchinson, Library Director. “I think it shows the level of commitment the library board and staff have to serving the county as a whole over the years,” said Hutchinson.
Because Lake County has few incorporated places, school districts were used for the service areas for library locations. The area within the North Lake School District provided about 23% of the General Fund revenue in FY 2019-20, and about 23% of the expenses went to support the Silver Lake and Christmas Valley branch libraries that year. The School District #7, Plush, and Adel school districts provided about 69% of the revenue, and about 66% of the expenses went to support the Main Library.
Some locations did better on some measures and worse on others. The library board anticipates that a new Christmas Valley Branch Library would improve the measures on which the North Lake libraries had less service than Paisley or Lakeview. The full report is available below. Questions about the library or the assessment may be directed to Amy Hutchinson at the Main Library at 541-947-6019 or via email at amyh@lakecountylibrary.org.
