Delegate Nancy Guthrie, 30th District

Is our library system important to you? It is to me too, and to thousands of other people who live and read in Kanawha County. So what in the world is Ron Duerring thinking? Whatever, he’s won this weeks “Wag of the Finger” award.

Talk about team players or “Friends of the Public Library” and Ron Duerring’s name probably won’t appear on the list. For years a handful of counties funded their public library system different than other counties. Duerring and company challenged that funding system in court, clever folks that they are, and the court sided with them. That left a funding hole that caused a lot of sleepless nights for anyone involved with operating libraries in Kanawha County.

The legislature stepped in during the regular session in January. Meetings were held. Hands were wrung. Foreheads were knitted. All in an effort to come up with a way to fund the libraries given the West Virginia Supreme Court ruling that was triggered by Kanawha County Schools.

With the help of House Education Chair, Mary Polling and Senate Education Chair, Robert Plymale we thought we nailed it. The hard working folks who keep the libraries open and operating were able to resume normal sleep patterns and we all patted ourselves on the back, believing we dodged another money crisis.

Until today that is. Turns out Ron Duerring found a way around our legislative intent. According to a report by the Daily Mail, “Duerring cited a law passed during the regular session this year that gave a way out to nine county school boards previously obligated by state law to give some of their property tax money to libraries.

The law said library obligations were to be paid if enough extra money were available to do so after the state calculated school aid. Or, a school board could add the library obligation to the excess levy renewal proposal it must put to county voters every few years.”

Stunning!!! I can’t speak for anyone else in the Kanawha County Delegation but I surely wasn’t trying to give Ron Duerring “a way out”. It was my legislative intent to give him a way to stay in. So here we are again, worrying about how to fill the budget hole Ron Duerring keeps creating. Say hello again to more sleepless nights, more hand wringing, more knitted brows, more emergency meetings.

Now mind you we just finished up a special legislative session this August. As far as I know these concerns were never voiced to any lawmaker, nor was any constructive alternative offered up by Kanawha County Schools to provide the needed money. Instead, less than a week after the legislature adjourned Kanawha Superintendent Ron Duerring sent a letter to library officials, announcing he can’t afford to pay the remaining $2.5 million the libraries expected to receive. Stunning!!!

And he’s willing to go back to court – with your tax money – to prove it. By the time Mr. Duerring gets through using all your tax money to pay for more of his court challenges we probably could have kept all the bookmobiles in Kanawha County running for years.

I’m hard pressed to understand why Duerring couldn’t have brought his concerns before the legislature when the regular session convenes rather than “shooting his ‘library friends’ in the face with a gun” as he seemingly has done now.

I love libraries. I love everyone who works at, supports or reads books from one of the libraries in Kanawha County. I even love the Kanawha County School Board. So why couldn’t Ron Duerring be a team player and work with his legislators to fix what he still sees as a problem?

This is not exactly what I’d call a good recipe for moving our county forward. It’s just another giant, step backward. I hope Superintendent Duerring will reconsider his position, withdraw his letter, restore funding this year and begin a discussion with lawmakers to find a permanent fix to this funding mess.

In the meantime, Kanawha County School Superintendent Ron Duerring is the winner of this weeks ‘Wag of the Finger Award’.