![\"dallas](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/dallaslibrary_dylanhollingsworh.webp.jpeg\")
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tLibrary closures will save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tLibrary closures will save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Dylan Hollingsworth<\/p>\n
Dallas Public Library leaders always knew they\u2019d have to get \u201ccreative\u201d to make the library system outlined in a massive, 20-year facilities plan approved by the Dallas City Council<\/a> last year a reality. Eighteen months later, budget constraints have left the North Star plan looking more like a pie-in-the-sky wishlist.\u00a0<\/p>\n The plan called for a complete overhaul of downtown\u2019s J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, as well as the expansion or replacement of 11 other library branches around the city. It certainly doesn\u2019t recommend closing any branches, although in the plan\u2019s nearly 150 pages, only three paragraphs discuss the \u201cfunding strategies\u201d needed<\/a> to help realize the upgrades recommended for Dallas\u2019 libraries. (Those strategies amount to little more than a, \u201cPlease, sir, I want some more bond money.\u201d)<\/p>\n City Hall is in a fundamentally different place financially than it was last April, when the plan was approved. Today is the first day of the new fiscal year, which means it\u2019s the first day Marilla Street is working with the biggest budget it\u2019s ever seen, <\/a>even though many departments are squeezed tighter than ever before, including the library system. Our credit rating outlook has been downgraded, and two-thirds of the city\u2019s funding this year will be put towards the police and fire departments, leaving other city services on the chopping block.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Skillman Southwestern Branch Library closed over the<\/a> weekend after the city council debated a handful of amendments that would have saved or shuttered it. Library leaders have already been informed that, in fiscal year 2027, approximately $2.6 million in additional savings needs to be found, meaning more branches are likely to close.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAs we started to look at the budget and the amounts of money that we need to save in FY27, there are only two ways to save that amount of money. That\u2019s either to reduce hours and days, like we have done eight times in the past 15 years, or we could take another approach,\u201d said Manya Shorr, director of the Dallas Public Library. \u201cUnfortunately, the facilities plan just wasn\u2019t as helpful for that development as I would have hoped it would be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very clear very quickly, we either need a doubled budget, or we need fewer locations,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n The first discussions about FY27\u2019s budget are expected to begin in December, leaving library leaders with only a few months to determine which additional branches should close. The criteria for that decision have yet to be established, Shorr said, and community input will be solicited. However, she hopes to engage in a more \u201crobust\u201d conversation than \u201cwe don\u2019t want our library to close.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n \u201cMy desire is not to close libraries, no library director wants to do that,\u201d she said. \u201cAt the end of the day, what we\u2019re looking for here is stability with some strategy and intention.\u201d<\/p>\n Shorr, who was announced for the director role in June after running the Fort Worth Public Library system, said she was \u201cshocked\u201d to start in her role and realize the budget pressures that DPL has been \u201cquietly\u201d experiencing for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n The library budget peaked at $36 million in the 2007-2008<\/a> budget; adjusted for inflation, that would be around $50 million today, and the system comprised 26 facilities. This year, DPL\u2019s 30 facilities were given $43 million in the budget. In comparison, Austin allocates $70 million annually to its library system, and San Antonio\u2019s library budget is nearly $60 million.<\/p>\n Shorr believes the library system\u2019s path forward is moving towards a \u201cregional model.\u201d In Tuesday evening\u2019s municipal library board meeting, she explained that in the coming months, library leaders will identify four library branches around the city that will transition to \u201cregionals\u201d: seven-day-a-week facilities with extended hours. The Vickery Park Branch Library already follows this model, so DPL will sponsor a total of five regional branches.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf we double down on these regional libraries, we\u2019ll be open around the city at key locations when our community needs us, which is something that we\u2019re not able to achieve right now,\u201d Shorr said.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Shorr, the 20-year facilities plan, which was put together over the course of a year by the consulting firm Group 4 Architecture<\/a>, was primarily paid for by the Friends of the Dallas Public Library, not taxpayers. She hopes the document doesn\u2019t end up totally \u201ctrashed,\u201d even if the guidance outlined isn\u2019t exactly the path the library system now seems to be on.\u00a0<\/p>\n The plan was useful, she added, during last year\u2019s city bond conversation. The 2024 bond earmarked $43.5 million for the Park Forest and North Oak Cliff Branch Libraries, and in Tuesday\u2019s meeting, Shorr said the City Council\u2019s Quality of Life committee will begin the process of finalizing those bond dollar plans later this month. The document also offers a comprehensive overview of the sorts of facility maintenance that will be needed in the coming decades \u2014 that type of upkeep has historically fallen into the city\u2019s blind spot.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt feels a bit incomplete rather than something we won\u2019t use altogether,\u201d Shorr said. \u201cI think there was a missed opportunity to talk about alternative service models, to really look at the landscape of the city, and to talk about where there may be gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Library closures will save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Dylan Hollingsworth Dallas Public Library…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":269610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,13239,1596,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-269609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-city-hall","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115299885242582219","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}