Oconto County library planning committee established

The makeup of a planning committee to conduct an in-depth review of Oconto County library services has been set.

According to a resolution the Oconto County Board passed in April, the library planning committee is tasked with developing a five-year plan to cover the years 2025 to 2029, including a “plan for reimbursement of libraries for services including funding formula changes and levy impacts, the feasibility of creating a new library to serve municipalities without a library and the feasibility of creating a consolidated library system.”

For years, the county has grappled with a state law that allows county-run libraries to charge neighboring counties for the use of their facilities if the neighboring county does not have a consolidated library system of its own. Brown County’s bill to Oconto County has increased exponentially.

The six independent community libraries have fought back by reorganizing as joint libraries operated with surrounding towns, but the result is that fewer and fewer towns are sharing the cost of the Brown County invoice — increasing each town’s individual share.

The library planning committee is expected to conduct public hearings and submit the library services plan to the county administration committee by June 13, 2024.

The board approved County Administrator Erik Pritzl’s nominees to the committee during its May 19 meeting.

Members of the existing library services board formed the base of the planning committee, Pritzl said.

“There were two libraries that did not have representatives on the library services board, Lakes Country and Gillett,” he said, “so each of them got me the name of somebody to serve after having discussions at that level for the planning committee.”

Planning committee members representing the libraries are Debra Schroeder (Farnsworth Public Library in Oconto), Dawn Byers (Gillett), Kathleen Marsh (Lakes Country in Lakewood), Judy Patenaude (Lena), Susan Mogged (Oconto Falls) and LoAnn Elbe (Suring).

Joan Denis represents Nicolet Federated Library System on both the library services board and the new committee, and Vicki Gooding is an at-large member.

The panel has three county board representatives, one from the administration committee (Al Sleeter), one from a district that is served by a library (David Parmentier) and one from a district that is not served (Chris Augustine).