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Terrebonne Parish Library System cutbacks that include partial closures unfairly target bayou communities, several parish officials charged last week.
“I have a concern that since parish government consolidated a lot of things on the bayous are being cut and I have an issue with that,” said Councilman Steve Trosclair during a council meeting last week. “If we are going to cut let’s cut across the parish. The population is moving but people still utilize these things, and a lot of things have been going to the city.”
Trosclair invited Tracy Guyan, the library system’s assistant director, to discuss recent changes.
“I had gotten a call from a constituent in Montegut who noticed the library in Montegut and pretty much all the bayou communities will shut down one day a week,” Trosclair said. “With the exception of Dulac and Montegut which will close two days a week.”
Guyan’s appearance was informational in nature. The library board is not seeking anything from the Council.
“We decided to look everywhere else so that we would not have to lay anyone off,” Guyan said. “Fridays are out slowest days.”
As Guyan explained it, bayou branches will be closed on Fridays but staff members from those branches will work on other sites. The main library in Houma will continue its regular operating schedule. But in addition to closing on Fridays, the branch in Montegut will also close on Mondays. The Dulac branch, in addition to being closed on Fridays, will close on Tuesdays.
“Those are our two lowest performing branches,” Guyan said. “We have 4,695 people entering in Montegut and 7,576 in Dulac every year. We don’t want to cut services. this is definitely something we don’t want to do. You don’t want it to be that way but in order to cut our budget we had to cut somewhere.”
Much of the library’s financial problems, Guyan said, involve a falloff in sales taxes due to the sluggish local economy, along with the Gibson library going overbidget.
Parish President Gordon Dove directed several questions at Guyan about finances, which she had some difficulty answering.
One question was the library system’s fund balance.
“With these cuts – gosh, I’m not the finance person, it would have been a deficit fund balance,” Guyan said. “It was very little which is why we had to take the cuts.”
Trosclair was not the only council member with something to say about the manner in which the cuts were being handled.
“We need to be cautious in how we look at these matters,” Councilman John Navy said. “Cutting the bayous but not cutting in (a city) district … In the future the board, when they decide to take these kind of actions they should let the council know.”
Councilman Darrin Guidry questioned Guyan as to whether hours of closure could be shifted to align more with high traffic times, to facilitate a more even application.
Councilman Dirk Guidry appeared to be restraining himself when he addressed the situation.
“The bayou people once again get the short end of the stick,” Dirk Guidry said. “They pay taxes and this is a service they are paying taxes for and not receiving. The main branch is open, but a little kid coming from Steve’s district or Arlanda’s district would have to drive 30 miles to get there. It is very unfair and these bayous are getting picked on over and over. You keep on shorting us.”
“That’s not our intention,” Guyan said.
“It’s sad for the kids,” Dirk Guidry retorted. “Thank you ma’am.”
