Juneau finance committee hears how federal grant uncertainty could cut interlibrary loans and weekend hours

The Juneau City and Borough Assembly Finance Committee on May 7 pressed library officials for specifics about how two budget scenarios would affect services and staff at the Juneau Public Library.

Library Director Melville told the committee that an uncertain federal pass-through grant that funds statewide services has put a year-round interlibrary loan (ILL) program at risk. "Interlibrary loan is when you walk into the library, you look on the library's catalog, and something that you're hoping to find is not there... we go outside of our system ... and go looking for another library," Melville said, explaining how ILL fills holes in the local collection and sometimes provides rare or out‑of‑print items.

Melville said the library logged roughly 390 ILL requests in the last full fiscal year and was on pace for about 360 this year before the grant uncertainty. She said the rate works out to roughly one request per day and that some users are one‑time patrons while others use the service repeatedly for research.

Under the package staff labeled "scenario 2," Melville said, the library would discontinue ILL and would reduce hours so that every Juneau library would be closed one weekday (the document showed a reduction of 35 operational hours). "By not increasing general fund support, we would need not only would we lose interlibrary loan, we would have to close all one day a week at all of our libraries," Melville said.

Committee members pressed for how those staffing changes would look on the ground. Assemblymember Atkinson asked whether FTEs would be cut and whether benefits would change. Melville and other staff said the scenarios mostly shift the workload: if the statewide service ends, local staff time would be needed to run ILL in house and to cover some program elements currently provided through the statewide partnership (notably the ALEKS program). Melville said the chief cost drivers are staff time and associated benefits.

City staff and the finance director told the committee that the uncertainty stems from federal offices that administer the grants being inactive, and that no federal agency had yet said the money was definitively gone — only that staff were not in a position to confirm continuation. City staff cautioned that if the grants are not renewed they would need to plan for the loss because restarting a year‑round staffed program later would require rehiring, resubscribing to services and rebuilding relationships.

Assemblymember Kelly asked whether the Assembly could make any funding conditional on not receiving the grants. Manager Kester replied that if a grant supplants general fund money, the grant is used first and any surplus lapses to the general fund; she said that this budget process naturally accounts for grant funding when it arrives.

Melville said the funded scenario would preserve collection expenditures and avoid passing reductions in new materials to the public; the unfunded scenario would reduce materials purchases and some weekend or weekday hours depending on how staff time is reallocated.

Committee chair Wall moved the manager's proposed increments to the FY26 budget to the full Assembly, except for two items (library item 1 and fleet/item 3), a motion the committee approved by consensus.

Ending: The committee directed the packet to the full Assembly and left the library increments (and item 3) for separate consideration; staff said they would return with additional detail to help the Assembly choose between the scenarios.