Local leaders may consider imposing a small fee on out-of-county residents who want an Arlington library card.
County Board member Maureen Coffey brought up the idea at a budget work session with library officials on March 5. She said that a “very low fee model” would provide some cash for “greater investment in the collection.”
Currently, Arlington residents are eligible for library cards in D.C.; in Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun and Prince William counties and the cities of Alexandria and Falls Church in Virginia; and in Frederick, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland.
Residents in those jurisdictions are also eligible to get an Arlington library card for free. Cards for individual localities can’t be used in other jurisdictions, and people must apply directly with the local government involved.
“I don’t want to turn anyone away, but it is notable to me how many of my friends in D.C. or Fairfax I have had the explicit conversation of ‘oh, we love your library,'” Coffey said.
Board Chair Matt de Ferranti said the concept had merit. “I fully associate with some low fee,” he said.
But Board member Susan Cunningham seemed to fear a tit-for-tat response from jurisdictions across the region, potentially limiting Arlington residents’ ability to get cards in other jurisdictions.
“It goes both ways,” she said of residents in one jurisdiction getting library cards in another.
The proposal also might run afoul of the county’s equity commitment, and its role in collaborative regional leadership.
County library director Diane Kresh did not take a position on the proposal, but said she would “look into it.”
At the budget work session, Kresh reported that County Manager Mark Schwartz’s draft fiscal 2027 budget included $1.66 million for the acquisition of new print and electronic materials.
In terms of base budget funds, that would be the highest the county has ever spent. But in recent years, when the base figure has been lower, Board members have added one-time funding later in the budget-adoption process.
During the current budget year, the library system received just below $1.66 million in ongoing funding, but an additional $350,000 in one-time funding was added, bringing the total to just over $2.01 million for the year.
A year before that, total acquisition funding was a record of nearly $2.54 million, counting both ongoing funding and nearly $900,000 in one-time funding.
Regardless of the total amount, “staff works wonders with stretching the dollar,” Kresh said.
“The library is the heart of the community; collections are the heart of the library,” she said.
The proposed acquisition funding is a little less than 10% of the overall proposed fiscal 2027 library budget of $18.94 million.
That proposed library spending is down 0.7% from the current year, in part due to the proposed closure of the Cherrydale branch — a plan that has ignited a firestorm among residents in surrounding neighborhoods.
At the March 5 budget hearing, data showed that checkouts of electronic materials are expected to be almost at parity with those of traditional print products in the coming fiscal year.
That has changed dramatically over the last few years. In fiscal 2019, print checkouts represented about 80% of the overall total, according to county data.
