By Miles Layton

During Tuesday’s Tyrrell County Commission meeting, there was talk of Tyrrell County’s branch “seceding” from the Pettigrew Regional Library system – since I’m a Southerner that’s the word that seems to work best. This article talks about the costs of doing so — seceding — ain’t going to be cheap nor easy.

To our bless your heart social media heart critic, we reported what was said at the commission meeting the same as we do every meeting no matter what was said, whether you agree with it or not.  

However, as was stated in the original story, I knew I would need to write a follow-up story that presents the regional library’s perspective.

And as I always have an eye on costs, particularly as it relates to government spending, I wanted more information about the bottom line of what secession may cost the taxpayers.

Long-story-short — if Tyrrell County chooses to leave the regional library system, it’s going to be expensive and a tax increase would be necessary to sustain operations. Sixty percent of the Tyrrell County Library’s budget comes from the county, with the remaining 40% comes from the regional library system.

Don’t forget all the costs that occur after a divorce – who gets what in the break-up; where is the dog going to live.

As I am a big supporter of local libraries, I thought I would dive into this topic to provide some perspective.

A recent audit and more information is included at the end of this story.  

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Let’s face facts — The Tyrrell County Public Library in Columbia sits at the heart of a small, rural community with limited tax revenue and residents who depend on it for internet access, children’s programming and essential public services. It is also, according to the administration of the Pettigrew Regional Library System, one of the best arguments for why regional libraries exist in the first place — and why dismantling that arrangement would be a costly mistake.

A recent presentation to the Tyrrell County Board of Commissioners by the Friends of the Library argued the county is losing significant money by remaining part of the Pettigrew Regional Library System and called for a formal letter of intent to withdraw. Commissioner Rob Thompson made a motion to send that letter, effective July 1, 2027, drawing immediate support. The motion failed to carry as a formal vote, with several commissioners declining to act without further review. But the question remains very much alive — and regional library administration wants taxpayers and commissioners to understand exactly what withdrawal would cost before that vote is taken again.

The short answer, according to Regional Library Director Nate King and Finance Officer Janice Young: far more than staying.

Under the current arrangement, Tyrrell County contributes approximately $163,425 annually to the regional system and receives in return a fully staffed branch library, a professionally managed collection, 21 computers with state-mandated security software, access to Microsoft and Google technology grants, shared cataloging services, and international interlibrary loan access through OCLC. The county’s librarian salary is paid not by Tyrrell County taxpayers, but by a state block grant that flows through the regional system — a benefit that disappears the moment the county goes it alone.

If Tyrrell County withdraws, King estimates the first-year cost to the county would run between $200,000 and $500,000 — and that is before the county could even apply for state aid again.

“There’s no cost savings, especially in that first year, where you have to prove that the county can sustain the library. 100% of the costs,” King said. “Staying in the regional library is going to end up saving counties money.”

The regional system, established in the 1950s on the principle that pooled resources could sustain libraries that individual rural counties could not afford alone, currently serves Chowan, Perquimans, Tyrrell, and Washington counties. For a county like Tyrrell — operating on a tight budget — that pooling is not merely convenient. According to King, it is what makes a quality public library possible at all.

“It would not make sense to us for that to happen,” King said of a withdrawal.

Young was emphatic that the financial concerns raised at the commission meeting are not supported by the data.

“If something is Tyrrell County cost, it is coded to Tyrrell County,” she said. “If it’s Tyrrell County income, it’s coded to Tyrrell County. Nothing is misappropriated.”

The regional library’s audits have consistently come back clean, and King suggested that figures cited in the Friends of the Library presentation may have been drawn from an incomplete financial report from fiscal year 2023-24.

“Our audits have been clean,” King said.

He also disputed a specific claim made at the commission meeting about who is paying the branch librarian’s salary — a claim he called flatly incorrect.

“Mike Smith incorrectly said at that meeting that Tyrrell County is paying for the librarian’s salary,” King said. “The way this region works — the way all regions work — is that you get a majority of your grant money from your counties. Then you show the state those grant allocations. The state has a formula for regional libraries. It covers the four counties in the region and then provides an additional block grant for the region. This region uses that state aid to pay regional staff, and that covers administrative staff, which are the county librarians.”

In short: Tyrrell County taxpayers are not currently paying their librarian’s salary. If the county withdraws, they will be.

“One thing the county would have to assume is paying for the salary of the librarian,” King said.

Salaries are just the beginning. King outlined a cascade of additional costs Tyrrell County would face the moment it stepped outside the regional umbrella.

The branch’s 21 public computers require state-mandated security software to protect patron data. Currently, the regional system’s grants from Microsoft and Google substantially reduce those technology costs. A standalone Tyrrell County library would lose access to those grants and would be responsible for the full cost of licensing and hardware support on its own.

The regional system belongs to OCLC, the international cataloging and interlibrary loan network, at approximately $1,800 per library per year. Access to the 24-library interlibrary loan consortium costs around $4,000 annually. The region also purchases and catalogs all books for its branches — a service Tyrrell County would have to staff and fund independently.

“You can imagine what those costs would look like,” King said.

And then there is the matter of the physical collection itself. Under the interlocal agreement, a withdrawing county forfeits rights to jointly held property. The sitting library director holds authority to determine which materials the departing branch may keep.

“My biggest concern for Tyrrell County if they leave is that in the interlocal agreement, it states that if one county should withdraw from the regional library, it forfeits any rights to the joint property,” King said. “Whoever is the library director at the time of a withdrawal can ultimately say, let’s pull everything.”

Materials purchased with state or federal funds — including equipment such as the branch’s television and other technology — would have to be returned outright.

A comparable withdrawal offers a cautionary example. When Jackson County left the Fontana Regional Library in western North Carolina, it cost the county an additional $800,000 in its first year — and Jackson County had three branches. Tyrrell has one.

A withdrawal would also put the branch’s six employees — two full-time, four part-time — in an immediate bind. All would be laid off from the regional system and would have to reapply for employment through the county, losing accumulated leave and benefits in the process.

Suggestions at the commission meeting that a standalone library could hire additional staff drew a direct response from King.

“A lot of counties that end up pulling out from their regional systems, the amount of money they offer to fill the librarian position is pitiful,” he said. “It’s typically around $40,000, or below. It’s hard to find quality staff when the salaries are not where they need to be.”

Administrative Assistant and HR Technician Faith Noel framed the staffing math plainly.

“It would be very hard to run a library four or five and a half days a week with two people,” she said. “They have to have time off.”

County Librarian Anna Louise Kallas, who oversees the Shepard-Pruden Memorial Library in Edenton, said the consequences would ripple directly into the community the library is meant to serve.

“You lack the resources to expand services, to train staff, to keep up with technology changes,” Kallas said. “Regional support is essential for resilience, service quality, and long-term viability.”

Kallas noted that next week she is partnering with East Carolina University to provide bagged lunches for students out of school for the summer — the kind of community outreach that depends entirely on having adequate staff and institutional support.

“Libraries aren’t just books anymore and aren’t just computers,” she said. “It’s learning your community, learning what the needs are, and basing your programs and your outreach on those needs. It’s a partnership within your community to provide services for that community.”

In the event of a natural disaster or economic emergency, Kallas added, a standalone rural library would also have far less leverage in securing recovery funding than a regional system would.

King acknowledged that regional separation has worked in some cases — but only where the economics supported it. The East Albemarle Regional Library, serving Dare, Currituck, Camden, and Pasquotank counties, dissolved amicably when those counties’ tax bases grew large enough to sustain independent systems. That threshold, King said, has not been reached in Tyrrell County.

“In cases where one county has withdrawn from a regional system,” King said, “those counties are not saving money. They are spending more.”

The administration’s message to Tyrrell County commissioners and taxpayers is straightforward: the regional system is not a burden. It is a subsidy — one that delivers a fully functioning public library at a cost the county could not replicate on its own.

“Our hope is that we can find a place where healing and moving forward can happen,” King said. “We don’t want Tyrrell County to leave.”