GREAT FALLS — The Great Falls City Commission has approved a reduction in funding for the Great Falls Public Library. The new agreement, struck Tuesday night during an often contentious meeting, is a compromise after months of negotiations between city and library stakeholders.The agreement cuts 3.5 mills of funding from the library budget from fiscal year 2026 until fiscal year 2029, which ends on June 30 of that year. Based on projected mill values, that amounts to a cut of about $471,413 from the 2026 budget and $499,088 by 2029. The library has warned that this will result in cuts to services, staff and a day of operation.The cuts are the direct result of two contrasting levy measures in 2023: the library’s successful levy in the spring and the much larger public safety levy and bond that voters rejected last fall. Throughout 2024, the debate over funding positioned a library with a $3.1 million budget against a much larger public safety budget that has fallen far behind the city’s needs.“I knew that a compromise was the only way to ensure some level of funding would remain in the management agreement,” said Commissioner Susan Wolff, who was on the city’s negotiating team. “My fear was that we would lose all seven [mills].”The cuts come from a batch of seven mills that the city approved in 1993 to support the library. Those mills were separate from the funding approved in last year’s levy election, though library supporters have said that their campaign relied on those seven mills as part of the foundation on which to build.During their meeting on Tuesday, commissioners first voted to cancel the 1993 agreement before moving on to consider the new agreement, which passed on a 4-1 vote with Commissioner Rick Tryon voting against.“I’m glad this is coming to an end,” Mayor Cory Reeves said. “This has not been a fun project.”It was a long road to Tuesday’s meeting. The first of eight negotiation sessions was on April 25 and continued even after the city offered a “last, best and final” offer that would eliminate all seven mills by 2027.The library’s board of trustees countered in September with its own proposal, which was for a smaller reduction of 2.5 mills through 2029.In this latest agreement, passed by the city commission on Tuesday, the city agreed to maintain reduced funding through 2029, at which point the library and city would discuss renewal. But with the reductions passed, Library Director Susie McIntyre has warned that services would need to be cut, staff positions would be in jeopardy and the library could close for one day each week.The city’s agreement still requires approval from the library board of trustees. Whitney Olson, the library board chair, told Montana Free Press on Wednesday that this will likely take priority at one of their next meetings. In the months leading up to the next fiscal year, the board will also need to decide how to realign its services with funding levels.“The board is going to have to make some hard decisions about what we are going to have to cut,” Olson said. “Because it’s not feasible to keep our current level of service with the amount of money the city has granted us.”Public comment and commission discussion on Tuesday focused a lot on Great Falls’ strained public safety resources. The city has vowed to reallocate the library funding to public safety needs, though the money is less than 1.5% of the $32 million public safety budget for courts, legal, police and fire.The library negotiations in 2024 have been juxtaposed against the successful library campaign of 2023 and the public safety levy that failed later that same year. The public safety levy would have raised some $13 million annually to fund firefighters, police officers, 911 dispatchers, legal staff and more. It also included a $21 million bond request for building and infrastructure.Library supporters gathered in the lobby of the Mansfield Theater prior to a city commission meeting on Sept. 3 to protest potential funding reductions. Credit: Matt Hudson/MTFPEarly in Tuesday’s meeting, the audience heard from Great Falls Police Chief Jeff Newton for a regularly scheduled update. Newton opened his remarks by mentioning the failed 2023 levy.“Despite the failure of the public safety levy and bond, the workload has not subsided and the challenges have not gone away,” Newton said.Officials have described the lack of resources at police and fire departments in Great Falls as dire. The city has grown in the 50 years since the last expansion of public safety funding, increasing the number of fire, police and medical calls. The lack of additional funding has increased fire response times, left departments unable to cover unstaffed positions and left the police department in a reactive position, as Newton described.During a Nov. 6 city meeting, Great Falls Fire Rescue Chief Jeremy Jones said the department had reached the limits of the adjustments they’ve made to maintain its level of service.Following the failed levy, the city created a Public Safety Advisory Committee. Aaron Weissman, vice chair of that committee, urged commissioners during Tuesday’s meeting to keep library funding and address public safety separately.“The citizens of Great Falls support public safety,” Weissman said. “It was just a really big ask.”After some debate earlier this year, the committee submitted a set of public safety recommendations that included the drawback of up to seven mills of the library’s funding. Jeni Dodd, another member of the public safety committee, advocated for removing all seven mills from the library coffers.“The 1993 agreement for the seven mills was never guaranteed in perpetuity,” Dodd said on Tuesday. “Each year it was subject to nonrenewal by either party.”Positioning library funding against public safety needs was key for those who supported the reallocation of library funds.“I can’t in good conscience support library expansion over public safety,” said Tryon, who was the lone vote against the agreement. Tryon announced he would vote no after reading off a list of insults he received in his email inbox and holding up a printout of a sticker that said, “Don’t rob our readers! Hands off the GFPL!”Those who lobbied to maintain the same level of library funding couched their arguments against the library’s successful levy campaign. “Our voters supported enhanced library services, not replacement funding,” said Brianne Laurin, Great Falls Public Library Foundation executive director.As part of its levy campaign, the library agreed to return a $350,000 annual general fund subsidy. Added to the reduction approved on Tuesday, the city will recoup around $821,410 from past library funding for the next fiscal year.The library board of trustees’ next meeting is Nov. 26, and the funding agreement is likely to be on that agenda.It’s likely that city officials will regroup and coordinate another public safety levy request in the future, though it’s unclear what that will look like at this time. The city will determine how to use the roughly $470,000 that will return to its general fund in the next fiscal year.“We’ve been asked several times: So how will we use these funds that come back?” Commissioner Wolff said. “And I will be recommending to our city manager and our fellow commissioners that this money be used to support our courts and our legal department.”In-depth, independent reporting on the stories impacting your community from reporters who know your town.The post Great Falls commissioners pass cuts to library to support public safety appeared first on Montana Free Press.