BOISE, ID – The governing board for Idaho’s Commission for Libraries is preparing its budget in case of holdbacks, or a mid-year cut, in addition to restructuring programs to cover a canceled federal grant.

The commission isn’t alone in considering up to 6% cuts to existing budgets. Gov. Brad Little’s office in May told agency directors to plan for potential reductions in spending, at 2%, 4% or 6% of their budgets, Idaho Education News reported. The direction came amid reports that the state’s revenue was $141 million below the projected level through May, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.

State Librarian Stephanie Bailey-White presented proposed budget adjustments to the library commissioners Thursday at the board’s regular meeting.

“If we have a 2% or 4% holdback, things will be tight, but we’ve budgeted for those scenarios,” Bailey-White said. “If we have a 6% pullback, depending on when we hear about it … the longer it goes when you hear about that, the trickier it is.”

The Idaho Legislature appropriated around $4.97 million to the commission for fiscal year 2026, which ends next June. The commission budgeted to use around $4.7 million to account for potential holdbacks, Bailey-White said Thursday.

If there are no cuts required to spending in the current fiscal year, the commission will launch its “tech refresh” program for libraries to be able to purchase laptops and other technology, and allocate funds for the My First Books program, which provides children who are unlikely to have many books in the home, from infants to kindergarteners, with a book a month for eight months.

Much of the commission’s expenses are tied up in multi-year contracts, Bailey-White said.

“A lot of our expenses, frankly, are fixed expenses that we don’t have a lot of wiggle room,” she said. “So then we really have to look at travel or some other things that we may have a little more flexibility with, but a 6% will be really challenging.”

She said options would include canceling a board tour of libraries, limiting staff travel, and keeping vacancies unfilled and using personnel savings to cover costs.

Commission continues transition of talking book service to partnership with Utah

William Lamb, e-services program supervisor at the commission, said he is continuing to work with Utah’s state library system to continue a program for blind and visually impaired Idahoans or others who have trouble reading because of a disability.

The Talking Book Service, which provides audiobooks for free to qualifying people, would have been cut because the federal grant supporting it was canceled amid the dismantling of the national Institute of Museum and Library Services by the Trump administration, the Idaho Press reported.

Four of the Idaho Talking Book staff positions that were supported by the library services institute were eliminated, the Idaho Press reported. Two additional positions from the program will adjust to help oversee the program in partnership with the Utah State Library.

Lamb said the new partnership will launch in September.

Bucks for Books program resulted in more readership among elementary students 

Commission staff also reported Thursday that its program in partnership with the Idaho Lottery, called Bucks for Books, contributed $50,000 this year for elementary school libraries to buy new books. School library grant recipients received between $1,000 and $3,000 to support their collections, Bailey-White said.

Libraries in 17 schools used the money to purchase more than 5,300 total books, Bailey-White said, and nearly all of those libraries reported an increase in the number of books checked out.

A few of the school libraries reported a nearly 100% increase in the number of books checked out, a staff report said. Awardees reported 44,845 more checkouts in the 2024-25 school year compared to the 2023-24 school year, the report said.

“At least one in four elementary schools have a book budget of $0,” Bailey-White said, “so when they get an influx of new books, there’s an increase in reading interest and circulation, and kids get to have books that they enjoy reading.”

This story first appeared on Idaho Capital Sun.