Sustaining your Library:

Statewide library funding

When Ohio legislators proposed a reduction to the Public Library Fund in the spring, taxpayers from across the state reached out to protest the change. In Lucas County, over 6,000 emails were sent, and 500 handwritten letters were delivered to legislators. Despite the outpouring of support, state legislators passed a biennium budget that reduces funding for TLCPL by $1.6 million over the next two years, on top of a current $2.8 million deficit due to continued system-wide rising costs.

This, combined with the current climate of reduced investment in public institutions, requires the Toledo Lucas County Public Library to make operational changes to sustain our organization in the face of decreased revenue.

What the Library has done so far

The Library has been systematically reducing expenses wherever possible for programming, training, maintenance, and overall operations. Additionally, we have been battling the same inflation that households experience with increased expenses for utilities, supplies, software, maintenance, etc. As legislators started advocating for decreased funding, we froze administrative pay, offered retirement options, and further reduced operational expenses by nearly $900,000.

Our goal has been to make as many reductions as possible that avoid impacting the customer experience, but this is no longer possible with the new state budget reductions.

Next steps

Toledo Heights and Heatherdowns consolidation:

The biennium budget leaves us no choice but to reduce expenses with painful cuts to our services. To make decisions that still provide the community with as many service options as possible, we looked at visitor numbers, materials circulation, and program attendance at similarly sized locations across the system. These three metrics are the best point of comparison to determine if a location is operating at its fullest potential.

Toledo Heights Branch, despite a loyal customer base, has consistently lagged behind other neighborhood branches across these three measurements. The state’s historic funding model allowed us to continue to serve this neighborhood while always looking for ways to increase usage.

Additionally, bringing this branch up to date, including current accessibility standards, could approach $6 million. These would just be structural upgrades that would not expand space or services. 

Just down the road (three miles away), we are also looking at a new location for the Heatherdowns Branch. We are unable to expand the size of this busy location on our current property. So, we have decided that a new, consolidated branch is the best option to maximize our resources and reach.

The new branch will be about 1.5 miles from each current branch, and in a high-visibility location, which we know increases customer access. For example, Heatherdowns currently sees 105,092 customer visits per year. Sanger is a similarly sized location, but on a busy street, and has 143,959 visits per year. A new consolidated location in a high-visibility area for Heatherdowns and Toledo Heights will allow us to reach more customers while only paying to operate one building.

The Toledo Heights building will be closed in January 2026 until a new centralized branch is opened that will serve both the Toledo Heights and Heatherdowns neighborhoods. Heatherdowns will remain in operation until the new location opens in 2028.

We will work with the community as we search for new occupants and uses for each building.

We will also be hosting listening sessions for the consolidation, with dates to be announced.

Reduced service hours

While the consolidation of Toledo Heights and Heatherdowns Branches will reduce the number of buildings we maintain and allow us to reassign staff, further reductions are still needed to meet our declining revenue.

When looking at our locations map, we worked to limit the hours reductions to branches that served customers who would most likely be able to go to other locations if needed. The reduced hours are also at locations where we have staff and hours that can be adjusted. 

Beginning Jan. 2, 2026, the following locations will
move to one shift:

Main Library

M – Tu.  | 9 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
W – Th. | noon – 8:30 p.m.
F – Sa.  | 9 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Holland, King, Waterville

M – Tu  | noon – 8:30 p.m.
W – F  | 9 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Mobile Services

M – F  | 9 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.

All other locations will maintain their hours as listed on our location page.

Building for the Future

We are committed to keeping your Library as strong as possible in this time of reduced funding for the public good. Part of that work will be to responsibly invest the $153 million bond Lucas County voters approved in 2024. These tax dollars are completely restricted and can only be used for the building and construction projects that we asked voters to support.

This community investment will allow us to preserve a strong library presence for Lucas County. We know how much the community loves the Library and will be doing our best to build a sustainable organization in the face of uncertain funding.

More information:

We invite you to contact your state legislators to express your concerns about current and future library funding.

Find your legislators here

Thank you for answering the call to advocate against the Ohio Statehouse’s recent proposal to mandate public libraries to segregate books that discuss gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation in public libraries.
 
Last night, upon signing the state budget, Governor DeWine line-item vetoed this harmful proposal, protecting every Ohioan’s right to read freely! We thank the Governor for standing with families in our state, recognizing that only you should decide what you and your family can read.
 
As we celebrate a win for intellectual freedom in our state, we also understand that the signing of this budget dramatically reduces the public library fund in Ohio. Here at the Toledo Lucas County Public Library, we will see a $1.6 million shortfall over the next two fiscal years. Although this will result in changes to our operations, we remain steadfast in our mission to “Engage all of our communities, inspire lifelong learning, and provide universal access to a broad range of information, ideas, and entertainment.”
 
Again, thank you for supporting your national medal award-winning Toledo Lucas County Public Library.
 
Forward,
Jason Kucsma

Since February, the Toledo Lucas County Public Library has been advocating to state legislators to maintain Ohio’s public library funding model. Despite your outreach to preserve strong library funding, the new and reduced model is all but finalized and will be enacted on July 1 of this year. However, we have one final opportunity to advocate against a restrictive library policy in the state budget.

Protect your right to read by emailing Governor Mike DeWine—a longstanding champion of public libraries—today. Ask him to veto a provision in Ohio’s budget that would place all books related to sexual orientation and gender out of the view of readers under the age of 18. Here is the exact language as currently written:

“Requires a public library to place material related to sexual orientation or gender identity or expression in a portion of the library that is not primarily open to the view of minors.”

This bill’s language is dangerously vague, overly broad, and ultimately unworkable. It opens the door to unconstitutional censorship and undermines the core mission of libraries—to provide free and open access to information.

Additionally, here at the Toledo Lucas County Public Library, our organization already has a clear and publicly accessible collection development policy, which outlines how any Lucas County/Ohio resident can request a book be reconsidered by library staff.

Why? Because Lucas County citizens know that libraries do not and should not act in parents’ place. It is up to the guardian or parent to decide what their children can and can’t read, as well as how their children can access books with or without them physically present.

This policy included in the budget bill would require each of our 20 library branches plus mobile services, (who welcome hundreds of children into their spaces each day) to construct a physical walled-off area where all books that reference sexual orientation and gender would be placed. Being a tax-funded institution, it will cost the library system millions of your dollars to do this in every branch—if it’s even possible. In some locations, this mandate could require us to make some of our locations adult-only libraries, depriving children and families of a shared public resource. Additionally, it would take years for library staff to comb through our millions of books, searching for mentions of gender or sexual orientation.

The bottom line is this: Libraries are spaces for everyone, where a world of experiences and ideas are there to be explored. Not every book is right for every person, but only you should decide what you and your children get to read. Segregated spaces are not what a library, nor a community, is all about.

Public libraries are truly a marketplace of ideas representing the diversity of thoughts and perspectives that make Lucas County a place we love to call home. Urge Governor DeWine right now to veto this provision!

Governor Mike DeWine
Main Line: 614.466.3555
Governor’s Hotline: 614.644.4357
Message: https://governor.ohio.gov/contact

There are still some steps remaining in this budget process. We are continuing to advocate for the reinstatement of the Governor’s Public Library Fund proposal ($531.7 million in fiscal year 2026 and $549.1 million in fiscal year 2027) and the elimination of the additional constraints on public library operations.

Even though the state general operating budget proposal has passed both the Ohio House and Ohio Senate, there is still time to advocate via the budget conference committee—which is composed of leadership from the Senate and House—which happens before the budget gets to the Governor’s desk.

At this stage in the process, direct conversations between legislative leaders and library leaders are likely to yield positive results. However, we wanted to keep you, the taxpayer, apprised of this legislative activity that will affect our future ability to provide the materials, programs, support, technologies, building access, and staff support that you depend on.

If you’re interested, here is where the Legislative Service Commission provides a comparison between the House and Senate bills (mention of the Public Library Fund is on page 732, with other Public Library Fund services reductions on pages 554, 555, and 556).

Additionally, the Senate has reconfirmed the House’s proposal to segregate materials that discuss gender and sex from minors and reduce the library Board of Trustees’ term limits from seven to four years. It also eliminates our ability to self-request property tax levy replacements and for the County Budget Commission to reduce our property tax collection if they believe we have enough money to operate.

On June 11, the Ohio Senate reaffirmed and passed the House’s budget proposal for the Public Library Fund. If signed into law by Governor DeWine on June 30, public libraries in Ohio will see negative and wide-ranging implications.

  • In fiscal year 2026, the Senate proposal would deliver $490 million to the Public Library Fund.
  • In fiscal year 2027, the Senate proposal would deliver $500 million to the Public Library Fund.
  • In addition, the following state agencies and entities would be funded through the Public Library Fund, further reducing state funding for public libraries from the line-item appropriation: State Library of Ohio, Ohioana Library, Regional Library Systems, Ohio Public Library Information Network and the Library for the Blind.
    • These expenses include the State Library of Ohio, Ohioana Library, Ohio Public Library Information Network, the Library for the Blind, and Regional Library Systems.

You may recall that in April, the Library asked for your help contacting your Ohio House of Representatives Member in response to their budget proposal to reduce the Public Library Fund. Even with your outpouring of support—thousands of emails and hundreds of letters sent from Lucas County—the House passed a budget bill proposal that still included reduced funding for libraries, along with additional library operations restrictions.

  • The House voted to remove the Public Library Fund as it currently stands (1.7% of Ohio’s General Revenue Fund) and move this fund to fiscal year appropriations.
    • Appropriations are year-by-year lump sums of money, which are much more vulnerable to future funding cuts.
  • In fiscal year 2026, the House’s budget would deliver $490 million to the Public Library Fund.
  • In fiscal year 2027, the House’s budget would deliver $500 million to the Public Library Fund.

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine has been a strong supporter of public libraries in Ohio. In his budget proposal to the Statehouse, the Governor recommended funding public libraries at 1.75% of the Ohio General Revenue Fund—just a .05% increase.

  • In fiscal year 2026, this increase would have led to a projected $531.7 million for the Public Library Fund.
  • In fiscal year 2027, this would have led to a projected $549.1 million for the Public Library Fund.

As taxpayers and supporters of your local library, we want to ensure that the residents of Lucas County are informed about recent changes and updates regarding the State Budget of Ohio. Here are some facts on the Public Library Fund:

  • Roughly 40% of TLCPL’s total operational budget (materials, staff, building maintenance, programs) is supported by the Public Library Fund of Ohio.
  • The Public Library Fund is reauthorized every two years in the state budget.
  • The Public Library Fund receives just 1.7% of the Ohio General Revenue Fund and is shared amongst all 251 public library systems across the state.
  • 48 of the 251 public library systems in Ohio solely rely on the Public Library Fund for operational funding.
  • The state has supported public libraries with funding to deliver services at the local level for nearly a century.

TLCPL and public libraries across the state of Ohio have been advocating for a small percentage increase in the Public Library Fund. Why?

  • The Public Library Fund has not been adjusted for inflation in 25 years.
  • In 2024, the Public Library Fund saw a $27 million shortfall that forced several libraries, including TLCPL, to make funding cuts that didn’t impact customer experience.
  • Usage is growing in Ohio libraries. In 2024, Ohioans visited their local libraries more than 48 million times.
  • Right now, the Public Library Fund makes up less than 0.5% of the entire state budget.
  • For every $1 invested in public libraries, residents see a $5 return in valued services.