From Andrew Carnegie to your Property Taxes with Noah Baskett and Tyler Bahr

We talked about just other ways we're sort of trying to capture taxpayers here in Salt Lake City are getting return on investment. We named the roughly $62 million just in actual value of the circulated materials. But the other way that I think we're paying attention to public sentiment, public libraries, and that's something we're also really proud of. Well, welcome back to the public money powder production at the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. And we are, of course, proudly sponsored here in season five once again by Nixon Peabody, the Government Finance Officers Association, Odyssey Advisors, Munipro, Dettbook, and Bam Mutual. I'm Justin Marlow joined as always by my intrepid co-host, Civil Aviation Mom, rural juror, library, fine, affectionate auto. You can catch her on Substack Liz Farmer, Liz Bookleg. Thank you. I guess I'm a woman of many weird talents. Yes, yes. Participating member of my community, that's for sure. And speaking of which, we've got like one week in counting till school starts here in Washington County, Maryland. So I should be optimistic. And actually the topic of this episode kind of is at least adjacent and related to education. But yeah, definitely feeling that like kind of end of the summer, whatever. No, that's right. It's, you hear people say things like it is the, it's like the holidays come early for parents as it gets back and that kind of thing. But that's, yeah, it is. It's always a tricky time of year. But as you mentioned, we are, we are there. And this week's episode actually intersects nicely with those questions about the educational education and educational outreach was fortunate to have two of the leaders from the Salt Lake City, Utah Public Library, Tyler Barr, who is their CFO and Noah Baskett, who is their CEO, to tell us all about library finances and the interesting sort of very dynamic landscape for public libraries in the United States. You know, we had something like 18,000 of them. Many of them are supported by property taxes and other very traditional local government services or local government financing sources, I should mention. Many are component units, right? They sit within a city government or a county government, some are standalone entities. They all have in common this really interesting tradition going back to Andrew Carnegie and the founding of the educational mission of a lot of philanthropy in the United States. Really interesting stuff. And I think often overlooked as a local government unit and as an interesting and important source of economic impact. And just as a public finance question at the local level in general, Liz, when you think about the discussion with our friends from Salt Lake City today, what comes to mind? I have really been looking forward to this and just as awarding to listeners, I am by no means an impartial host here. I have always loved my local library wherever I live and have used it. And I remember getting my first library card when I was five or six years old. I still have it somewhere around here. I can pass it not to, relatively recently, but I forgot to go pull it out. And the evolution of local libraries has been really kind of just large over the last several decades, especially as so many things have moved online. And people's needs have moved beyond just wanting to use their library to check out a book. I mean, you had the internet and you got workforce development. I mean, all of this stuff that libraries do. And I hear about it a lot from my mother too. Her version of retirement is working part-time at a local library. And she does so less and less these days, but shout out to the San Alina public libraries in California. But I hear from her too about just how much things have changed in the time that she's been doing that. And so for libraries, I think one of the things I'm looking forward to hearing about is how they've managed that. And certainly in these times with the lack of trust that people have at so many institutions, you know, what's going on there with libraries. And so it's going to be a great conversation. We're pleased to welcome to the public money pod Noah Baskin, who is the CEO of the Salt Lake City Public Library and Tyler Barr, who is the CFO of the Salt Lake City Public Library. Gentlemen, thanks for taking some time with us on the public money pod today. Right to be any guys. Thank you. I'm like a huge lover of the libraries. So I am super excited that we can have some library folks on the podcast today. So let's start big picture because a lot of people love their libraries too, but they probably don't always think about who pays for what and where all this stuff comes from, right? So how do you articulate the financial value that a library gives to its community? Yeah, it's a great question. And one that we love to answer because there is so much value that you can boil down. You know, there's been a lot of studies on public libraries that essentially shows about for every dollar investment public libraries. There's about four to nine dollars output for both economic and social value. You know, there's a lot of different things that people are aware of. Public libraries provide to the communities. And many things that folks aren't aware. So clearly direct savings by allowing local patrons to borrow books, increasingly borrowing ebooks and audio books online, movies, all kinds of tools that we're saving folks every day. But then there's a whole lot of other additional kind of benefits to when we think about job and career help, offering free computer and Wi-Fi access, resume classes and job search support. A lot of the work that we support in student success that then turns into economic value, whether that's encouraging children's reading, doing direct work with students through outreach and tutoring. And then a whole lot of other services that we're always looking to increase added value to our patrons as well here in Salt Lake City. So things like the New York Times, you can access for free through the Salt Lake City Public Library, including the games and New York Times cooking, Rosetta Stone and Mango, you know, these really expensive language learning resources that we provide for free. College Test Prep, LinkedIn Learning, you know, we're always looking for added ways to kind of generate value for Salt Lake City residents in particular. And concretely, that's just in terms of our circulation. So not meeting rooms or Wi-Fi, but just in terms of people checking out books and ebooks, that was about $62 million over the past 12 months in value. So especially, you know, for people that are struggling in the community, the kind of resources were able to offer for free or just huge, whether that's internet access or access to computers. So we're always looking for kind of real concrete ways to deliver financial economic value to our patrons. That's a lot. And it's one of the takeaways here. It's way more than just books. It is. Yeah, I mean, we're known obviously for books and access to information and knowledge, but then there's all those other ways we're trying to provide access to other resources that people wouldn't have. As the way that you deliver services has evolved as you just described, how has, if at all, the way you pay for all of that evolved, how is the financial structure of the library changed over time? It's a great question, Justin. And thank you for asking that. Our funding here in the Salt Lake City Public Library is almost exclusively from local property taxes. And like, so many other industries and other public agencies revenue growth for public libraries doesn't keep up with inflation. So in addition to personnel costs that make up the largest portion of our budget, a couple of expenses placed at particular squeeze on our finances. First, digital materials, including audio books and ebooks are becoming increasingly popular. I know that that's the mainstay of my commute back and forth when I travel. And in fact, we anticipate that the number of digital items circulating at the Salt Lake City Public Library will eclipse the number of traditional print materials that are checked out this year. So that poses some challenges financially because digital materials typically cost the library to three or even four times as much as the print version. And even then, we only get the digital materials for a certain length of time or for a certain number of checkouts. So at the cost of digital materials as a big deal for us, especially as we look to the future and see that that trend continuing. Can you explain a little bit more about why that is? Because I think for most people who might be used to buying stuff on Amazon might look at the kind of version of a book and say, "Oh, it's cheaper." So why does the cost library is more for that stuff? Yeah, you bet. So we would love to get the same price that individual consumer can, but because we're sharing that, the publishers have locked in to a practice that I think is common across many industries in a technical sense. And that's subscriptions, right? So rather than purchasing a perpetual license for software, you buy it once and then you have right to that ongoing until that software sense that's software now we're paying on an annual basis, right? Whether that's word processing or data or whatnot. So we see that kind of as a mirroring trend with these digital materials where we don't get to buy the item like we would a print piece of material and it's only a subscription for a certain amount of time or a certain number of checkouts. In addition, another squeeze on our finances tends to be facility construction and maintenance as those costs have dramatically outpaced revenue growth and spaces for gathering and other library programming or in higher demand than ever before. Personally, I find that libraries are some of the best places to enjoy quiet reflection, but they're not just about the quiet spaces, right? It's a place for connection. These spaces are increasingly expensive to build and maintain, so that's something that we're looking years into the future trying to plan and time construction and maintenance as best we can to make those dollars stress just as far as possible. I would just add just in terms of as we think about kind of diversifying funding related as we diversify our services, you know, a big part. I think of public libraries writ large, but especially here, Salt Lake City Public Libraries, is we do think local philanthropy has an important role to play in addition to local taxpayer dollars. I mean, you all know probably that it was this great act of philanthropy from the deal magnate Andrew Carnegie that really got public libraries up and going throughout the United States back in the 1880s. And so there's really good precedent of philanthropy coming alongside public support to really extend library services. So we we launched the Salt Lake City Library Foundation about a year ago as a separate 501(c)(3) that just exists to grow resources for the library system. So we've had really great success to date. There's a lot of local foundations and individuals that see the value that we were describing every day and want to support that. And then we Tyler mentioned buildings that are not the deepest thing to keep up and go in and especially as the library is looking to some pretty significant capital projects. We're going to be rebuilding a couple branches here in the near future. We've our foundation has launched a capital campaign to be in a line with some of our public bonding efforts. So even as we look to the public to fund probably the majority of these buildings, we're looking to demonstrate to taxpayers how we are going to be leveraging their tax dollars through these bonds an aligned capital campaign where local philanthropy and other individuals in the community really want to be a part of those building projects as well. So we kind of see those two funding sources being away for us to strengthen and grow what we do in the library. Hey listeners, in this next segment our guests talk about their plans for accessing the bond market to pay for some of their capital improvements. And for that reason this segment is brought to you by partnership with our sponsor menu program. This is a big follow up on that for the municipal bond market inclined folks in the audience. Do you all go out and borrow on your own? Are you borrowing as part of a public authority or a condo at entity? How do you make that work? We are a component unit of the Salt Lake City Corporation. So Salt Lake City. So we're not a department but a lot of our financial mechanisms and systems are tied to the city. So a general obligation bond would be through the cities borrowing capacity. We're considering a few other opportunities in local building authority bond as well which would involve the city. City would have to approve that the city council. In that case the debt service would be through the library itself but there is a connection and frankly a very beneficial one we feel with the city that allows us some autonomy but great support from some wonderful partners. It is about so much more than literacy even and so it's sort of reminds me about like local government's mission has evolved to it's gone from just paving roads and whatever to a whole of life type stuff. And yet in many of these cases and for libraries the funding mechanisms have remained largely the same overall. Is that the case for Salt Lake City or is there a misconception maybe that people have about how libraries are funded that's kind of far off the mark? It's a good question you know I think one of the things that I've learned from the library industry as a whole is that in terms of how public funding works it and how public libraries are structured in terms of a component unit of a government entity are so different state-to-state county to county so that there is quite a bit of diversity. I would say that I think public libraries are probably a little bit further behind in terms of engaging philanthropy and even corporate support than probably like public universities. So I think we're drawing a lot a lot lessons and the good news is we just you know we benefit from just all this support from communities and so and we've been around a long time we're quite stable and we're quite trusted so it's a very easy bell and a win-win to engage local philanthropy as an example but I think the truth is we we're playing catch-up compared to some other public entities that have done work for quite a while in resource constrained environments and thinking about how you diversify funding sources so we're getting ahead of the eight ball but I think there is a catch-up to do. Like that in Utah particularly I think one of the biggest misconceptions about libraries and other local government budgets is a belief that property taxes increase automatically every year as property values increase and this is a big deal for the library because 99 percent of our revenue is derived from property taxes. In reality the amount of property tax we collect from existing properties stays the same by default unless we request a rate increase and go through a process called truth and taxation when the new construction market is strong we do see addition revenue related to real estate growth but that also comes with increased demand on our materials and services and generally speaking the majority of residents in the state have this misconception that the library is revenue automatically increases every year and that just isn't the case. We already talked about a digital materials briefly and that's something that we find is a little bit of an unknown among our community digital materials are not in fact less expensive than printed materials. The technology certainly makes it easier to access digital versions but they're typically more expensive than print we mentioned before so just because a library staff member is not directly involved in checking an audio book to a patron there are still significant costs to provide this service. The Salt Lake City Public Library has made significant investments in e-book and audio book materials or the past few years to reduce the amount of time or the amount of time that our patrons have to wait for items and we're continuing to look for ways to make these materials even more successful. I'm shocked to learn that property tax payers in Utah are also misunderstood and how property taxes work as seems to be the case throughout the entire country. You're not alone in that. Is there any philosophical opposition to that? I mean I know I hear sometimes folks whether it's in libraries or even in public safety and other sorts of functions where they say if this really truly is something that the public cares that deeply about then it should be financed entirely with taxpayer dollars that we should leave the philanthropic efforts to other things that don't sit neatly within the purview of say state or local government. Any of that kind of is that philosophy something that you encounter in thinking about broadening the financial stakeholders for libraries? I'll be honest just and then say that you know I have not encountered a lot of opposition. I think particularly our elected officials have been really encouraged by our engagement with local philanthropy. They are grateful for our intentional work of seeking additional ways to stretch taxpayer dollars. Again like I mentioned I think libraries in particular have a really strong argument to make just because it's so embedded in our history as an institution. I think the other argument I would make is that there are I think certain core parts of who we are that are always going to be funded by public. In many ways I think really as we look to philanthropy it's looking about extending impact. As we look at launching a new service like how can those folks that are maybe willing to risk a little bit on us help us extend that new tutoring program and that neighborhood that's underserved as an example or help extend that tax dollar to provide some additional benefit as we try to build these library buildings for the future next 50 years so we don't have to rebuild in the near term. That's how we think about it. This is let public libraries certainly are core public good. We're a long ways away from my majority funding being anything other than taxpayer funds but philanthropy can just extend. Increasing costs of subscription services I mean those are things that I think anybody and local government can relate to are there budget or like ongoing fiscal pressures, you'd say are more unique to the library world? - Well, certainly. Where we're mostly dependent on property taxes, we don't have access to sales tax or other fees that the rest of the city might. But we're also talking about an inventory of products and services that are constantly changing. The collection alone that the library has every single year, we need to onboard and offboard volumes and volumes of material. And not just the information we're providing, but it's important that our information and those materials are up to date that we're giving folks data and resources so that they can thrive in today's world, stuck in, say like the telegraph or what not, that wouldn't be very helpful. I think that dynamic certainly puts some pressure for the library, but one that's exciting and give us an opportunity to be on the cutting edge of what people need. - We talked about just other ways we're sort of trying to capture taxpayers here in Salt Lake City are getting return on investment. We named the roughly $62 million just in actual value of circulated materials. We did some polling a couple of years ago, 91% of Salt Lake City residents, not just art holders, but residents at large, 91% trust a library. And then the other thing that I think we are also really proud of, we, back in 2023, we did some polling that basically said, would you want to pay more if it meant more library services? Would you be open to a tax increase if it meant increased library services? In 2023, 73% of residents said, yes, they would. We asked that question again last year, and this is after we had a significant tax increase in 2025, about a 20% tax increase. Given where the economy is, given that increase in taxes, you would expect that number to go pretty significantly down. And that's not what happened. 87% all respondents said that they would support additional funds. If there's like a less an eye draw from that is the fact that we hold the kind of public trust that we do matters a lot. And our posture that we exist solely for public benefit who our residents matters a lot. And I think residents see that and they appreciate it. - I think we covered the question on digital collections, unless there was anything else you wanted to add that you haven't already mentioned. - Next year, it is where library usage is going. People continue to use the library to access print and analog materials, CDs, DVDs are still very popular for us. But and people still are coming through the door, kind of at record numbers. But we're kind of plateauing as it relates to that physical circulation, but digital is just going through the roof. As Tyler mentioned, the way that those licensing agreements work without any kind of federal legislation on the books that wires publishers to play nicely in the public libraries, it's getting pretty expensive for us. So that is really challenging. I know there's a lot of efforts at the state level at a number of different states to kind of guidelines in place for public libraries and publishers related those materials, but it is where the public interest is going. And so we're working as hard as we can to just respond to what that state of desire is from the public in terms of those resources. - Yeah, for the, for all of our Gen Z listeners, a CD is a compact disk that was a physical piece of material that you used to listen to music back in the day. And great to hear that. You still make that available because I am. I gather there's quite a few folks who that's still there, they're go to. - My local library was a safe haven for me during the pandemic. Like when I just had get out of the house and I knew there weren't going to be a ton of other people around. I just needed to work. And I remember writing about this too at the time. And this was the case for a lot of people. And just kind of curious, you know, five years, six. Oh my gosh, six years later. Were there any takeaways in terms of value to community or the way people looked at libraries or even budget that came from that period for you all? - Gosh, that's a good question. And you know, I'll be, I think Tyler and I can both be honest and say we weren't with the library or a library system during the pandemic. - Okay. - So we can't speak to it super personally. But I will say, you know, I think there were definitely, you know, the library, our library system did as much as we could to try to adapt services when you couldn't, because we did close down our buildings for a period of time, but did set up some ways for people to be able to drive up to our locations for us to run out and give them whatever materials that they had a hold. And so I think that speaks to, and maybe this is kind of what you're getting at Liz. Like I think in terms of an adaptable, flexible institution, you can't beat a library in terms of its ability to respond to community needs. So I think that's certainly one takeaway for sure. Like yeah, our adaptability is a built-in feature that allows us to address needs and when there is a pandemic or some other emergency. The other thing I was thinking about, you know, like a lot of places just dip in terms of people through the doors, it's taken a while for us to get past that. So this next year is going, well, I think this past year was the first year where we exceeded pre-COVID numbers in terms of coming through a library door. And so I think there is such a hunger, especially in light of this epidemic around loneliness, the other kind of major public health issue, right? And like people just desiring for in-real life connection that I think we are both riding the wave of and really trying to pay attention to. It's like even if you just want quiet space for co-working, you maybe want to do it around your fellow human beings. And so that's something I think we're really trying to pay attention to is that the hunger we're here, we're feeling in terms of people having real life connection with others. - I think that's so important what Noah lifts up 'cause human connection is so critical. I see that on myself, I see that on my kids and others around us in the community. The reality is that algorithms that play into so many things that we research and consume online, limit our exposure somewhat to new ideas and information, as it learns you and understands what you're looking for. So keeping information free and open and available and helping people find that, right? It's not just there, but we're making it more accessible, we're giving folks the experience. And funding for so many social programs is being threatened these days. So preserving that access to information in library service, I think is just as if not more important than never. - You mentioned that you all as a component unit having common, you know, some things with other types of component units at the local level, housing authorities and public building commissions. And so cases, public utilities that that component unit structure is something we see a lot of. Any public finance lessons that you all as a library could share with your component unit brethren? Don't be afraid to ask questions, certainly. Building relationships and working together collaboratively with our city counterparts is huge. We are but one piece of resident property tax bill, right? And in many instances, if not one entity, it's another it's increasing property taxes. So having relationships with the city, with the county, the school district other entities that are playing a role in that, but particularly with the city making sure that we're not stepping over something that they're trying to do, they're aware of our plans and that we're flexible and workable as the timing may have to shift as a result of the broader needs for the city, whether that be roads or public safety or what not. - That's really well said Tyler. I think yeah, Tyler named proactive relationship building, I think transparency and a collaborative posture, a recognition that we aren't the only mouth of the feed. We're not the only organization component unit with needs and serving this city. I think the other thing that Tyler has just done a fantastic job in leading finances that Salt Lake City Public Library is, and this gets the transparency piece is forecasting, financial forecasting. And this is what we were in Chicago talking about, but we have not seen a lot of other component units locally that are able to speak, not only to next year's budget requests, but two years out, three years out, seven years out. So as we were thinking about operational costs and where they will be growing over time, alongside what some of our capital needs will be, that we're able to talk kind of long-term and then have the kind of conversation Tyler was saying around, when are you thinking about significant road improvements for other kinds of needs in the city? So I think our elected officials and other departments at the city and county level have really appreciated us being able to speak long-term as well. - And to that end, as you're looking out over the years, I mean, you must have worries. I guess what worries you as you do that and how are you thinking about that stuff? - Well, we're not a library, please give me another city to point. department, the component unit, and so those considerations we already talked about. Those mean that the library has, from our property tax revenue, we have to fund operations, capital renewal, and new capital projects. It just isn't a separate source of funding that we get to tap into on regular basis. No one either thoughts that you'd have on that one. I would say one of the challenges, especially in forecasting, is just making sure we have a plan, we got a plan A, but also B, C, D, because timeline, you have a timeline and a plan, but there's so many different moving pieces that not everything aligns correctly, all the time, where we are to give in capital campaign goal that we have raised, along with the timing of when we are going to be taking out that bond. There's just a lot of, in terms of aligning the puzzle pieces on a timeline, that's not an easy thing, so I would say that's, it's definitely something we're trying to pay attention to, and making sure that, yes, we have our plan and forecast, but that if not everything does align that we know how to adjust either timeline or what our plans are. Go back for a second to follow up on the point about forecasting for component units. Why does that happen more often? Is it a capacity question? Is it the types of revenues and spending you're having to forecast, or some of the barriers to that? The type of revenues does play a role in that, we make forecasts, but we, at the end of the day, we get what we get, and there's a little bit of reluctance I've seen to make a forecast that might be overstating in the end, what revenue, and nobody wants to be to be wrong, but especially we don't want to be short of forecasts. So in our forecasting, we've plugged in a number of variables that gives us ability to be quite dynamic and shifting timeframes that they're helpful, but also I think accountants and folks in the money world we'd like to be accurate when we spot on, and the reality is all of the forecasting and the data that we have based our information on is not perfect, it's never going to be, but having at least a stake in the ground from which to work from, and a plan, we know that the plan is not going to roll out perfectly, 100% as we anticipated, but that gives us the opportunity to be adaptable and pivot from that and recognize a lot more of the marginal benefits, revenues fluctuate, whether positively or negatively in the future. I remember one of the things post-pandemic was this shit away from library fines, and I'm curious, kind of back to then maybe this is a misconception or not, I don't know. I was like constantly, I just used to want to give my library already $10 a month instead of having to go on and pay whatever fine because I forgot to return the book, but on library fines, everyone used to get them, I think a lot of people aren't shift away from that now, but first of all has, has Salt Lake City one of those places and more largely what role did overdue fines even in play into the budget? Yeah, we went fine free, Salt Lake City public libraries went fine free back in, I want to say it was 2019, something like that, and I want to say we were a bit kind of on the front end of that trend, so we were always trying to pay attention to, yeah, kind of how we can be leading the way, and I think particularly for that one, and Tyler could speak to this as well, finds were a relatively negligible line item in terms of revenue, and the truth is when you look at who is most impacted by those late fees, it's typically folks, patrons from underserved backgrounds, from low income backgrounds, and you know, a fine that maybe you or I, it wouldn't be that big a deal or just, I just my tab, my $10 a month tab, like that could really be the thing that keeps a family away, and it's the family that maybe has the most sort of benefit from library services, so we really did see this kind of as an issue around equitable access, and again, it didn't in terms of revenue loss, it was just not really significant. But on the cost of collection, I would add, collecting those fines also chips away at the revenue that we would take in on that, so whether it's credit card fees or having to follow up multiple times, and then just whether even when you try to have such a positive experience in the public services, the fact that somebody has a fine just leaves a little bit or can be a little bit of a sour taste, and we don't want that inhibiting anybody from using our services in the future. Sure if they lose an item, please replace it, and folks are generally good at doing that, but if it takes an extra few days or a week to get that item back, somebody's enjoying it, and that's great. In general, I think, yeah, fees in general are something we're always looking at and saying, what's the cost benefit analysis, and also to Tyler's point, what's the cost of actually implementing the fee? One of the ones we're looking at right now is printing. You know, we have been rolling out and have a pilot to increase the number of free prints. If you don't have a printer, you come to your public library, and that's really important for many of our patrons. It's a really important service. But what's the cost for us above a certain threshold to provide more prints versus just making that, making that kind of threshold higher for people to be able to just do or printing for free? So that we're always, I think, try to pay attention to, like, if we could offer something for free, why don't we, and let's always try to pay attention to that again, just in service of the public. Very good, very good. Well, thanks so much. Noah Baskett, CEO and Tyler Barr, CFO, from the Salt Lake City Public Library. We really appreciate you spending some time with us today. Thank you, Ball. Thanks, Liz. Thank Justin. Well, thanks again to Tyler and Noah that was every bit as interesting and enriching as I anticipated. And I sort of hate to end the episode on a sour note, but that unfortunately is just going to be where we're at right now with local budgets and libraries. There was a couple of news stories recently about local library layoffs. I chose to pull the one that's happening in Dallas. And the Dallas Observer has been, has been covering this across a couple of stories here. This one is from, from August 7th, when news broke about layoffs that had just started happening at, at the Dallas Public Library. The headline, like I said, this is Dallas Observer. The headline is Dallas Library sees layoffs ahead of budget season with, quote, no sacred cows. The story is by Austin Wood and Emma Ruby. And you know, the gist is that leaders are basically saying we've got a big budget whole. They're going to be layoffs. And, and what the observer has uncovered relatively quickly is that a portion of those are going to be coming from public libraries, other, other programs and, and departments across the city as well. So it's already a handful of libraries. People have received layoff notices in Dallas. The story really kind of focuses, though, on why this is happening and what the contribution of the library is to, to the Dallas community. It notes that around 10,000 residents have participated in adult learning classes through the first half of this year alone. Library operates on, what some might call a shoestring budget. It's, it operates on a 43 and a half million dollar budget in this current fiscal year. It employs 400 people, roughly. And, and we just heard from our guests about the kinds of contributions local libraries make to their communities. So what's happening in Dallas is that the city is facing a budget shortfall, roughly 51 million dollar gap is expected for this, for fiscal 2027. This, and there's a shortfall in the current budget that led to a hiring freeze. City leaders have been warning of an especially tough season. This is after the library, after already previously tough years before last, or sorry, earlier this year, the story notes that city officials floated the idea of shuttering four library band-ship branches and eliminating 32 staff positions as a cost saving measure. That was not well received. And so instead, what they did is it says they shot the last year, already shuttered one library branch, didn't lay off anyone, relocated those employees, but this proposal of closing branches and layoffs projected in this memo that, well, okay, we won't close the branches, but we're going to have to layoff some people. The story quotes the city of Dallas spokesperson, Rick Erickson, who said that they had to make difficult decisions that does include eliminating some positions across the system, but some of those are currently vacant. He noted that the decision followed a careful review of operations and part is part of a broader financial adjustment and modernized staffing model. Interesting choice of words. So many cities across the country are facing these types of situations where there's just not enough money to pay for the things that everybody wants you to do and in Dallas's case libraries along with some other departments are going to be having to do that with with less staff. And Curious Justin, this was on the breaking news front here with this one, but they I think it did a good job of kind of talking to the different types of stakeholders in public libraries. Curious to what your thoughts are on what's going on in Dallas, maybe even across the country and how it reflects our the conversation we have with our guests. Yeah, in many ways this is illustrating the downsides of many of the advantages that Tyler and Noah talked about vis-à-vis Salt Lake City situation. If you remember, they had said that as a component unit of the City of Salt Lake City, they have an opportunity to have all kinds of really collaborative working relationships with other units of city government, other departments within city government, even though they're technically not a department, they're a component unit, but they can functionally behave like a department when it comes to being collaborative and having really good working relationships, understanding how they can add to the mission of a lot of the sort of emerging new services that local governments all over the country are trying to provide, workforce development, helping with the educational attainment, helping with things like homelessness and crime prevention and all kinds of things that libraries can meaningfully contribute to. The picture that they painted in Salt Lake City was one of we are adding a lot of value and we are considered a really important part of city government where we're integrated into city government even though we're technically financially legally a standalone but integrated unit. Here in Dallas, it's the opposite, right? Here in Dallas, which is I think the case on a lot of other jurisdictions where it's a component unit, it's seen therefore as something that's kind of discretionary or less, less essential to basic city operations and much like the analog that comes to mind right away is public higher education, right? Where in state budgets, public higher rate is often like one of the very few sources of true discretionary funding that a state legislature has so whenever or they're part of the budget gets squeezed because of things that they can't control cuts to Medicaid. More recently, the snap administrative error issues, all those kinds of things that are squeezing state budgets higher ed get squeezed because it's one of the few areas where the state legislature can make cuts, demand more tuition, do all sorts of things that are entirely within their their purview and that is clearly the case what's going on here in Dallas. I think it's a really interesting and effective analogy in this case. So what do you do then if you're the libraries or they and it's another interesting contrast to the way that Tyler Noah talked about in Salt Lake City, in Salt Lake City, it's not like they've been very focused on their kind of equity and inclusion mission thinking very very pointedly about what it means to be essential to the community to make sure that everybody has access to make sure that they're contributing to the life of the community and the educational mission of local government in a lot of different ways and in Dallas, the way that that is being realized is through tough questions about do we have more library branches open for fewer hours or do we have fewer library branches that are open more but require people to travel a little bit further and what does that mean for access? What does that mean for that part of the mission? Those are all you know questions that they're going to have to grapple with here sooner than later so it just goes to show how that component unit relationship can unfold you know very different ways depending on the politics of the circumstance, the way the we're the funding for both the libraries and the city comes from lots of different factors but you just see two really contrasting pictures here. The last thing I was going to do that really jumped out which I know has been a key issue with libraries all over the country. It's a lot easier in some cases to build capital facilities than it is to staff them. Dallas that seems to be part of the problem here was that there was basically a lot of cheap capital available through the municipal bond market and through other types of sources to be able to build new physical facilities at a time when library collections were physical you know physical considerations you needed space you made perfect sense at the time. Now we have as was described by our friends at Salt Lake City a lot more emphasis on digital collections a lot more emphasis on interacting with the public in very different kinds of ways and if you can't staff those facilities it doesn't matter how great they are nobody can nobody can use them and so these you know Dallas is I think in the same situation that a lot of places that really grew up in that kind of post-World War II boom find themselves which is they've got a lot of facilities and big questions about what to do with them how to adapt what they're doing to the current challenges and not having quite the same degree of flexibility and humbleness that a place like Salt Lake City has. So yeah it's we're going to have to see is it something that's playing out a lot of places but it just goes to show again that in in local public finance especially where you sit within a broader institutional governance structure and where your money comes from has massive implications for the way that you accomplish your mission. The public money pod is a production of the Center for Mediciable Finance at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy. This season our sponsors are BAM mutual, Odyssey Advisors, Muni Pro, Deadbook, Nixon Peabody and the Government Finance Officers Association. Our producer of this season is Capita Browett. You can learn more about the Center and its work at our website munifinance.u/shicago.edu that's munifinance.u/shicago.edu. You can learn more about this farmer's work at her sub-stack Long Story Short. That's Long Story Short. Thanks for listening. We look forward to hearing from you sometimes.