The council meeting on Monday, July 23, will open with a mayoral minute from Cr Stephen Lesslie seeking councillors’ support for a campaign to increase state government funding for public libraries.
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Mr Lesslie said the NSW government’s funding for libraries per capita was the lowest out of all states in Australia, and had decreased significantly due to the actions of both Liberal and Labor governments.
“NSW councils are currently paying 92.5 per cent of the costs to operate public libraries, up from 77 per cent in 1980,” Cr Lesslie said.
“The NSW public library network is at serious risk.
“Neither this Council nor the broader NSW Local Government sector can continue with the high degree of uncertainty about the level of ongoing State Government funding for public libraries.”
According to council staff, Lithgow Council’s total budget for all library services in the 2017-2018 financial year was $465,000. State government funding contributed $70,000 to that figure.
Cr Lesslie said that the 2018-2019 state government budget represented a five per cent cut to state funding for libraries and the budget “cut access to all infrastructure funding for metropolitan areas.”
The budget did include a $5 million pool of funding for infrastructure projects in regional libraries as part of the Regional Cultural Fund.
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The mayor noted the decision of the Local Government NSW conference in 2017 to back a NSW Public Libraries Association’s campaign for bi-partisan support for a significant increase to public library funding.
He recommended council endorse and participate in the organisations’ ‘Renew our Libraries’ campaign, which will be launched next week in the lead up to the March 2019 state election, and make representations to various members of parliament to support the aims of the campaign.
At the time of publication a council decision had not been made on the matter.
NSW leader of the Opposition Luke Foley has pledged to increase funding for libraries by $50 million in the first term of a Labor government.
MP Paul Toole has previously told the Lithgow Mercury the state government would continue to invest in libraries through grants.
