The Grant County Court voted Wednesday to begin the process of defunding the county’s only public library.

The county’s library director, Chris Ostberg, said losing county funding could close the library, cutting off services with few alternatives.

“Kids from Dayville would have to drive clear to Burns,” she said. “That’s over 100 miles for them to get a book. That’s not going to happen.”

She said the library, which is located in John Day, is a community hub for a lot of key services in the rural Eastern Oregon community. For instance, it’s the only place where residents can make a paper copy or access the internet if they don’t have a computer, she said.

Grant County faced a $1.5 million budget shortfall this year due to rising insurance and retirement costs, combined with losses in revenue from the jail, grants and federal sources, according to the Blue Mountain Eagle.

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In May, the county’s budget committee considered immediately axing funding to the jail and library, but they ended up using unappropriated funds to plug the gap, for now.

At the meeting, commissioners said they still need to consider cutting future library funding to help stabilize county budgets.

Commissioner John Rowell said the county would face a “catastrophic deficit” if it didn’t take action.

“We have to cut costs,” he said. “We have no choice. We’re going to cut them someplace. We have to.”

State law requires the county to hold two public hearings in the coming months before it can officially pull funding from the library.

The commissioners said library supporters could use the meetings to help brainstorm potential funding solutions, like forming a new taxing district.

While Ostberg isn’t opposed to a library district, she was skeptical it could be formed in time to replace county funding.

Grant County wouldn’t be the first Oregon county to defund its library system.

In 2007, Josephine County shuttered its libraries after commissioners redirected library funding elsewhere. It took two years for volunteers to fully reopen the county’s library system as a nonprofit, and another eight years before supporters formed a library district to publicly fund them.

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Grant County, the only county in the state to lose population in the 2020 U.S. Census, has also seen a contraction in public services in recent years. The county lost its only public pool in 2022 after a bond failed with voters. That same year, John Day shuttered its police department, leaving the Grant County Sheriff’s Office as the only local law enforcement agency.

County officials have to give 30-day notice ahead of the first meeting to discuss pulling library funding, and they can’t hold the second one until 90 days after that, according to state law.

In the meantime, Ostberg and other library supporters are trying to rally support. She said they are circulating a petition to preserve funding and have already collected 500 signatures in a county of about 7,200.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/06/05/grant-county-cuts-library-funding/