This article was originally published in the December, 2010, Newsletter.

While public libraries are funded primarily with local property taxes, the State of Illinois does provide opportunities for funds to libraries through grant programs, including the Per Capita and Equalization Aid Grants. The state's grant funds are available with strings attached; that is, there are annual applications and requirements to receive state money.

One significant development from Fiscal Year 2010 (which ended June 30, 2010) was that the General Assembly reduced State Library funding, and the Secretary of State opted to use Library Services and Technology Act funds from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services to maintain the Per Capita Grant program. To put this another way:

In FY 2010, Illinois used federal money to maintain library grant programs that the state budget could not sustain.

Now we are in fiscal year 2011, which began July 2010. In October, 2010, the Office of the Comptroller reported:

There is a strong possibility that the backlog of payables on June 30, 2011 could greatly exceed the backlog at the start of this fiscal year. The level of fiscal year 2011 obligations unaddressed at the end of June could total as much as $8 billion or significantly more if the over $3.7 billion in fiscal year 2011 General Funds pension commitments remain unaddressed. The structural imbalance in the current budget, combined with higher debt service costs and the loss of federal stimulus revenues, creates the very real possibility that the Governor and General assembly will face a working deficit of $15 billion or more when the fiscal year 2012 budget is crafted early next year. This deficit would represent more than half of the current General Funds budget. The ability of the state to maintain any reasonable level of education and social service funding - and just as importantly, to pay for those services on a timely basis - will be severely jeopardized.

In other words:

The State of Illinois will not have any money, either state or federal, to fund even essential services, let alone library grant programs.

For FY2010, the Per Capita Grant program paid approximately $1.02 per resident to participating libraries. The Clifton Public Library was lucky; we were one of the library's the state funded through LSTA funds, and received our Per Capita money in March, 2010. Many libraries who were not funded with LSTA funds have not received their Per Capita funds yet, and the availability of these funds is doubtful.

While Per Capita funding from the State of Illinois is only a small part of a library's operating budget (in our case 4%), it seems probable that the Per Capita and Equalization Aid Grant Programs will be unfunded for FY2011, resulting in tighter library budgets across the state.