GRAND RAPIDS — On a sunny August afternoon, hundreds gathered outside the Grand Rapids Area Library for crafts, prizes and free popcorn and slushies.
The annual summer celebration awards kids for their summer reading with a free book and an afternoon of fun.
Children’s Librarian Tracy Kampa is 90% sure there will be no summer celebration next year.
Its absence was listed among the impacts of budget cuts in a presentation Director of Library Services Amy Dettmer gave to the Grand Rapids City Council on Monday, Oct. 27.
Budget cuts are forcing a nearly 30% reduction in staff hours. While the children's library will see the biggest reduction, everything the Grand Rapids Area Library does will be affected.
“Really what it’s going to amount to is service is going to be a little bit slower, it’ll take more time to get items out on the shelves, and that’s just because we’ll have fewer hours,” Dettmer said.
Talk of changes at the busiest rural library in the region has been swirling for months, since the library first raised the alarm of impending budget cuts. But the long list of impacts presented to the Council is the first comprehensive look at how patrons will feel the effects.
Next year, Dettmer, who assumed the director position in early August, will be the library’s only full-time staff member.
“I’ll be kind of the glue that holds everything together,” she told the Council.
How’d we get here?
The Grand Rapids Area Library’s budget will be 22% smaller next year, based on the latest numbers from the city.
That’s a significant jump from the 8.5% cut that the library was facing after the initial budget was shared in September.
The city further reduced its contribution to $570,000, which is $260,000 less than in 2025.
The Grand Rapids Area Library has two major funders: the city and Itasca County.
For years, the city has been carrying the bulk of the bill — 84% in 2025 — despite city residents only making about a third of checkouts. It will still foot 72% of the costs next year.
In May, Mayor Tasha Connelly and then-library director Will Richter went to the County Board to ask for a more equitable funding arrangement. The city needed to reduce spending, and it wanted the county to help make up for the library cuts.
Itasca County levies $50,000 more for libraries than the minimum amount allowed by state law.
Itasca County’s library levy goes to the Arrowhead Library System, to support its operations. All of the county’s libraries are part of the system.
Grand Rapids is unique because it has an agreement with ALS that results in its portion of the levy going directly to the Grand Rapids Area Library.
After much back and forth, the county said it wouldn’t increase its library levy, which is around $390,000.
But it would redirect that extra $50,000 that has gone to the ALS to the Grand Rapids library. That raises the county’s contribution to $178,000 for 2026.
More on impacts
The Grand Rapids Area Library’s hours of operation for 2026 will need to be decided by its board, but librarian Kampa estimated the library would be open about 21 hours, compared to its current 36 hours.
It’ll take significantly longer to order and catalog new materials, shelve returned items and answer community questions. Passport, printing and IT services will be greatly limited.
Kampa has already decided to no longer make the popular Online Storytime series in anticipation of her hours dropping. The summer and winter reading series will continue in some form, but not at the same level.
“We’re scrambling to figure out what we can do in 25 hours that we used to do in 40 hours,” she said. “ ... I needed to put [Online Storytime] aside and now start looking at all the other pieces that make the children’s library and figure out how we can maintain the highest level that we can for our patrons.”
In June, the circulation desk processed an average of 1,300 books a day, Kampa said.
“We can’t keep up with those numbers because we aren’t going to be open as often,” she said. “But the days that we are open, we’re going to be phenomenally even busier than we are now because people will have a significantly compressed amount of time to be here.”
The future of library funding
Neither the city nor the county budget is set in stone. Leaders will continue to make adjustments to their proposed levy before finalizing it after their Truth in Taxation public meetings. Grand Rapids' meeting will be 6 p.m. Dec. 1, and Itasca County's will be 6 p.m. Dec. 2.
The city and county will meet again to discuss long-term solutions to the budget inequities. The city has an idea for an equitable funding formula that it hopes the county will support.
City Councilor Molly MacGregor said she and others are working on a pledge drive to raise $250,000 by next September to support library funding in 2027.
While it won’t address this year’s challenges, MacGregor is tapping into the vocal support for the library that has emerged in the last few months.
“As devastating as this is, I know there are a lot of people in our community who are just as upset as we are, and they’re working very hard on finding some solutions to this problem,” Kampa said. “So in my mind, I’m saying, ‘It’s just going to be a year. It’s just going to be a really hard year.’ And I hope it doesn’t go beyond that.”
