Board of Supervisors to Consider Transferring Funds from Banning Library District to Cabazon

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors on Thursday will discuss whether to shift around $250,000 in property tax revenue from the Banning Library District to the Cabazon community for use by the new library currently under construction.

The transfer would begin taking place in 2013, but the Banning Library District is concerned that is too quick of an exchange.

“I would like them to agree to phase it in over the course of five years to prevent abrupt loss of service,” said Robert Lippman, library director for the Banning Library District. “We don't want to cripple library service for 30,000 people to benefit 3,000.”

Lippman argues that the lack of property tax revenue, which is the library's only source of income, would cause the Banning Library District to cut hours and lay people off.

Supervisor Marion Ashley’s office sees it differently.

“In the proposal they're still going to get the full allocation through 2013 fiscal year, for us that's ample time,” said Steven Hernandez, legislative assistant to Marion Ashley.

“This is a community that's generating $250,000 of revenue and what we're seeing in terms of the services is that the Banning Library was providing was 12 hours per week,” Hernandez said of Cabazon. “You would think that the money generated in the community would stay in the community.”

The Cabazon library has been closed since June 2012.

The Banning Library District also wants the opportunity to put in a bid to run the new Cabazon branch. The current plan is to have LSSI, a private company which runs other county libraries, take over management of the new library.