Lakes Country ready to become a joint library

OCONTO — Lakes Country Public Library in Lakewood is slated to become the third joint library in Oconto County — joining Lena and Suring — effective Jan. 1.

Nicole Lowery, director of the Lakewood facility, told the Oconto County Board during its Sept. 19 meeting that there are three forms of library in Wisconsin — a consolidated county library like Brown County, a municipal library funded by one local government entity, or a joint library in which several municipalities get together to fund and operate the library.

Lakes Country serves residents in much of northern Oconto County and neighboring counties, but the towns of Lakewood, Townsend, Riverview and Doty specifically are forming the joint system, Lowery said.

Officials of the four towns agreed “we’re all using this library and we want to support the library that we’re using,” Lowery said.

A board comprised of residents from each town has been actively working since last year to prepare the transition.

Key ingredients began with Lakewood agreeing to the idea, since it means giving up sole control of the library, she said. The town will continue as the library’s fiscal agent.

“You have to figure how much the towns are going to contribute, which can be very contentious,” Lowery said. “You need to figure out the size of the board — this is fun.”

The state Department of Public Instruction, which needs to sign off on the agreement, at first recommended an 11-person board based on representation of each town’s population.

“I told them that’s a huge board for an area of less than 3,000 people — that’s a huge board in any case, but to find all those board members? It’s going to be exciting,” she said. “It’s down to eight people now, which is a lot more manageable.”

The process of developing the agreement has gone very smoothly, Lowery said.

“Everybody on the committee has been really wonderful about doing the work,” she said. Sticking points included determining how much each town contributes each year and the representation of each community on the library board.

The most important thing is to be able to show each town how the library is serving its residents.

“I’m hoping to bring some programs out to the different communities, and be responsive if they ask, ‘Can you (for example) bring some books out to the Townsend Town Hall every month?’ Maybe that’s something we would do,” Lowery said. “That’s something I’ll be working on toward the end of this year and all next year.”

The first year is a relatively high investment for each town, which has to pay the regular library tax to neighboring counties but also the first payment in the new agreement.

“I made sure they understood this is a little bit of a financial commitment up front,” she said. “But they all passed it anyway, so I guess we’re headed forward.”

In other business, the County Board approved the latest five-year library services plan, which defines the relationship between the county and its six local libraries from 2020 through 2024.

Kevin Hamann, administrative coordinator, said the plan is essentially the same as the five-year plan that expires at the end of this year.

“The only big change is the funding allocation (among the various entities) has changed,” he said. The new figures reflect increased use of computers and other electronic assets as well as the increase in community programs hosted by libraries.

The libraries in Gillett and Oconto will now seeing some increases in county funding greater than the past 10 years, while Oconto Falls and Lakewood increases will be somewhat less, Hamann said.

“The six librarians got together, fought it out, and these are the numbers they came up with,” he said.

County ordinances allocate 2.1 percent of the previous tax levy to libraries. That does not change but the funds will be distributed differently, Hamann said.