Credit: City of Altamonte Springs

Amid rising costs and a diminishing budget, Altamonte Springs next month will consider closing its city library on Maitland Avenue in its current form. Discussion will occur during a public hearing on the city’s budget.

City manager Frank Martz, who serves as the city’s executive leader, is proposing an alternative “digital first” model for library services as part of the upcoming fiscal year budget in lieu of a brick-and-mortar location, with the possibility of transferring some community-facing library events, like toddler story time, to the city’s Westmonte Recreation Center.

“This was a very hard decision, and the recommendation was not made lightly,” Martz told Orlando Weekly in an email. In 2024, city commissioners voted to increase the city’s millage rate in order to maintain funding for the 66-year-old library and keep it alive at least temporarily, while also supporting pay increases for law enforcement officers who were seeking jobs elsewhere due to lagging pay.

“Two years ago, the City Commission did not raise the millage from 3.1 mills to 4.0 mills to fund the library only,” Martz said. “That is not accurate, though some people are saying it.”

But Martz warned the city commission at the time that the millage increase — referring to the city’s property tax rate — wouldn’t solve the funding issue permanently. He knew they’d be “back here doing this again” soon. “I felt that to be the case because library service costs were rising and library attendance was not,” Martz told the Weekly.

Are libraries worth the cost?

According to the Orlando Sentinel, city officials in 2024 stated it cost them $460,000 a year to operate the Altamonte Springs City Library. Due to inflationary pressures, however, Martz estimates that, in the upcoming fiscal year, the annual cost will rise to $750,000. He said 96 percent of the city library costs go towards “just keeping it open” by way of electricity costs, air conditioning, maintenance, property and liability insurance, and staffing.

“While the staff and services at the City library are excellent, as a fiscally conservative city, one of the few cities in Florida that is debt-free, it was hard to recommend that we spend an additional $750,000 for a sixth public library that has less space, fewer books, fewer staff and far fewer programs than the existing Seminole County library 2.5 miles to the east,” Martz explained.

Seminole County, just north of Orange County, has five county libraries that Martz said Altamonte Springs taxpayers already support with property taxes. “All of the library services we have been offering at the City library are currently available in the Seminole County library system just a few miles away,” he added.

“We will continue digital library offerings, and some youth programs and senior programs are proposed to be continued at the Westmonte Recreation Center. And for far less taxpayer money.”

Library closures aren’t just in Altamonte Springs

Altamonte Springs isn’t the only city struggling to keep library doors open. Other cities across the country, such as Dallas, Texas; Long Beach, California; St. Paul, Minnesota; and Waco, Texas, are also considering either shutting down libraries or scaling back their hours due to factors such as budgetary pressures and slowed foot traffic.

Kelly Jensen, a former librarian, writer and industry expert, told the Weekly that the U.S. is seeing “a lot of instability” when it comes to library budgets. She argues this instability can be traced back to the same political party — Republicans, that is — “that has manufactured panic around ‘inappropriate’ books in libraries.”

“We’re in the midst of a class war, and libraries are among the political tools being leveraged here,” she said. “Politicians want to shut them because libraries are institutions of democracy, used by people of all backgrounds with no expectation of money to be exchanged for simply being in and utilizing the resources within them.”

While Florida Republicans have advanced efforts to eliminate property taxes — a move that could threaten the very same tax revenue that pays for essential public services — local governments have been scrambling for ways to save money or cut costs.

“States across the country — including Florida — are attempting to pass new tax laws that on the surface look good — lower taxes always sound appealing — but that would absolutely decimate local public goods, including and especially public libraries,” said Jensen.

In Hernando County, county officials recently backed away from permanently closing one of its libraries, after facing harsh pushback from county residents. The city manager in Fort Walton Beach also recently complained about his city’s library, arguing that it’s too “big” and costly to keep air-conditioned. He’s in favor of ditching the Fort Walton Library in its current form and bringing in a private developer to build a smaller one.

“Cutting libraries and claiming it’s because of costs … is just the next step in making the rich richer and the poor poorer,” argued Jensen. “It’s another way the [political] right hopes to create a generation dependent upon them because of the lies they’ve sold those people.”

‘Now we all need to speak up again’

Still, when it comes to Altamonte Springs — a city of more than 47,000 people — not everyone’s on board. 

Altamonte Springs city commissioner Bob O’Malley went off on the issue on Facebook, affirming, “I have made it clear to City staff that I intend to vote against any budget that does not include full funding for the library. I stuck my neck out two years ago to save the library, and I’m grateful for the many residents who voiced their support. Now we all need to speak up again.”

City commissioners will be discussing the future of the library, and Martz’s proposal to switch to a digital model, during a public hearing on the city budget on Thursday, Sept. 3, at 7 p.m.

“We are trying to make good business decisions, and sometimes that means making hard decisions,” said Martz.

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General news reporter for Orlando Weekly, with a focus on state and local government and workers' rights. You can find her bylines in Creative Loafing Tampa Bay, In These Times, and Facing South.