Library System Plans to Cut 15 Full-Time Jobs

Officials plan to cut 15 full-time jobs at county libraries, a move they say will help maintain extended hours and make the troubled library system more efficient.

Targeting jobs ranging from office assistant to senior librarian, officials expect to make the layoffs March 22.

The 15-branch system includes libraries in unincorporated areas and in Ventura, Camarillo, Simi Valley, Ojai, Port Hueneme, Moorpark and Fillmore.

Thirty-four workers will receive layoff notices, but are eligible to apply for 19 jobs being created in the reorganization.

The moves would leave county libraries with 52 full-time workers--fewer than half the number employed by the county a few years ago.

Interim Library Director Richard Rowe described the plan as an effort to streamline a system with too many managers.

“It’s a consolidation of job duties and responsibility throughout the organization,” Rowe said. “As part of that, we have a redistribution in management personnel.”

The new cuts are the latest in an ongoing effort to keep cities from leaving the troubled county system, which has seen its budget slashed repeatedly since 1990.

Critics, however, charged that the plan would take many highly skilled workers out of the system, shifting work to inexperienced workers who earn lower salaries.

“Will it take longer to get best-sellers in and out on shelves? Will people have to spend less time on reference questions?” asked one librarian who fears being laid off. “We don’t have answers to any of those questions.”

Rowe said savings from the cuts would help libraries keep the longer hours reinstated last year. He estimated the layoffs would save $180,000 a year. The agency has an annual budget of about $5 million.

Last year, city leaders complained the system had too many upper-level managers, was open too few hours and spent little time on basic needs--such as ordering new books.

In fact, the cities of Simi Valley and Ventura--the largest in the system--threatened to pull out.

Officials increased hours. They also agreed to keep property tax dollars to run libraries in cities of origin, rather than distributing funds countywide.

County officials called the layoffs difficult, but necessary.

“The painful part is to have [employees] go through this,” Supervisor Frank Schillo said. “The outcome, however, is we’re in a much better position to provide better service to the public and keep libraries open for longer hours, without increasing taxes.”

The plan is set for discussion by Ventura’s library advisory committee next week, with county officials taking final action in February.

Union officials called the proposed cuts drastic--and said they may try to block them in court.

“All they’ve done is rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic,” said Barry Hammitt, associate director of the county employees union. “You can’t run a library with [so few] librarians.”

Hammitt said union officials may seek a court order to give employees time to negotiate.

Hammitt noted that under the restructuring, the number of workers classified as “temporary” or “intermittent” will increase from 30 to 36.

Hammitt said that instead of trying to save money, cities and the county need to start putting more into the aging libraries.

George Berg, a spokesman for Save Our Libraries, said he also worries about diminished service.

According to the plan, about seven full- and part-time jobs would be cut from the system’s central office. But the plan indicates that the number of library employees in each community will not change much: Simi Valley and Camarillo will still have 12 each, Ventura 20, Ojai 5 1/2, Moorpark 5, Fillmore 2.

Berg said that in many communities, seasoned librarians will be lost. That is a price county residents will have to pay for keeping the libraries open longer, he said.

“It will be more difficult for people to get the information they want,” Berg said. “They may have to wait in line. . . . Or they may not get the information at all.”

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Times staff writer Hilary E. MacGregor contributed to this story.