Money runs out for Smiley Library's program for adultsRedlands Daily Facts: July 26, 2006 by Colleen Mensching
The writing is on the wall. Budget constraints are forcing the A.K. Smiley Public Library to close the book on its adult literacy program.
The library founded Redlands Reads in 2002 with a five-year grant from the state's California Literacy Campaign. Larry Burgess, library director, said he and other city officials knew all along that the California library board expected the city to support the program when the grant ran out.
"Five years ago, nobody anticipated this year's budget crisis with the General Fund," said Burgess.
During 2006-07 budget talks, Burgess told the City Council that he hadn't heard whether the state would continue to fund Redlands Reads. The program has a volunteer staff of about 40 and one paid coordinator. At the highest pay step, the coordinator position pays about $58,000 a year, plus benefits. Including program materials, Redlands Reads should have a budget of about $80,000, said Burgess.
"We might not need the total salary for continuing the literacy (position)," Burgess told the council in June.
As it turns out, the city wouldn't need to put up the coordinator's full salary - this year. But the state recently offered to pay the salary this year only if the city kicked in $10,000 and promised to foot the whole $80,000 bill in 2007, said Burgess.
Technically, the City Council has until Aug. 1 to decide whether to accept the grant and fund the program. But the council, which isn't scheduled to meet again until the state's deadline, approved the 2006-07 salary resolution at its last meeting.
The resolution doesn't include city funding for the Redlands Reads position.
"Certainly, if the library director thought there was a way to find that money in the library budget, we could add it back in (with an amendment to the resolution)," said Mayor Jon Harrison.
Harrison gave no indication that General Fund money could be dedicated to the program and Burgess has already said the library's allocation is stretched to its limits.
Even a generous benefactor can't save the program now, according to Burgess.
The issue isn't just $10,000 this year and $80,000 the next, he said. The community will always have literacy needs and there is no sustainable financial program to support them, said Burgess.
"The issue is now passed and we look to other ways that we might help with literacy. It won't be under the formal program of the grants," he said.
Justine Curley was the director of Redlands Reads from its inception until June 30, when the state grant funding her position ran out.
Curley said there was a tremendous amount of work involved in starting the program. She spent the first year of the grant setting up the program.
"We had nothing," she said.
Now the library has about 10 years' worth of literacy textbooks, said Curley. Curley ordered the books just in case Redlands Reads didn't survive the end of the state grant.
"If we had to, we could go to just a check-out basis," she said.
Without someone serving as the director of the program, however, there will be no one to supervise 40 volunteers, counsel students, match them with tutors and monitor their progress while supporting each pair's individualized learning track.
Could the program survive without a full-time director?
"I can't imagine how," said Curley.
Students speak: Frank, who asked that his last name be withheld, says that he "fell through the cracks" as a dyslexic child attending school in the 1950s and early 60s.
He did well for himself by working hard, making enough to pay the bills and even own a home. But he struggled against his illiteracy the entire time. He's proud of the work he's done at the Smiley library since joining Redlands Reads.
"I still consider myself illiterate but to be at zero level and to jump up to 3 or 4 is a great achievement for me as a person," said Frank.
Frank says he'd like to be able to sit and read a Sunday morning paper but he's got a more pressing concern.
"I've struggled with my driver's license for all these years. Next year I have to go take the test again and I'd like to be able to sit down and read the test and answer the questions," he said.
Carmen Hernandez was born in the United States but when her parents moved her to Mexico as a child it "stopped (her) experience with reading."
For Hernandez, a photographer with a love of history and architecture, the literacy program wasn't just an introduction to the written word. It was an introduction to Redlands.
"We were kind of traveling through time in the history of Redlands: the passion that people had for these orange trees, these palm trees, the architecture," said Hernandez, whose tutor used books about the city as part of the curriculum.
"When I read this history I understand why this place has this aura of health and wealth."
Literacy also helps citizens to understand and participate in the present, said Hernandez.
"I think when you talk about libraries and democracy - this makes sense to me. If you don't nurture your citizens and you let your education level go low, your society gets weak."
Hernandez is working on an essay about her experience of the city's history, which she will offer to the library.
For the past year, Linda Smith has watched the literacy program give her son back parts of his life that he lost in an accident.
In 2003, Casey Smith pulled over on Interstate 10 to help another driver who had crashed near the Cypress Avenue exit.
"A woman came off the freeway and hit him. She hit him on the right side and tore his leg off and threw him down the freeway. Doctors ended up amputating his leg and he had traumatic brain injuries," Casey's mother recalled.
After seven weeks in the intensive-care unit and three months in a coma, Casey was transferred to a longterm care facility, where he would have stayed if his family hadn't fought to get him into a rehabilitation setting.
Smith said she discovered that the Inland Empire doesn't have programs to help victims of traumatic brain injury regain skills like reading and writing. As a result, her son isn't the only traumatic brain injury patient in the Redlands Reads program.
Redlands Reads provided the kind of individualized attention that Casey couldn't get at an adult school or college, said Smith.
"When he first started he was not able to write hardly at all and he couldn't read. Now he can write very legibly. ... Now one of his favorite places is Barnes and Noble."
Casey, with the help of his tutor, Pete Zimmerman, has been working on a speech to present to middle school and high school students.
"My son wants to be a motivational speaker about the power of positive thinking. He believes that's what saved him," said Smith.
Casey may still be able to do that, in part because his tutor intends to keep working with him.
"I hope to continue in some capacity whether they continue the program or not," said Zimmerman. He said he expects other tutors will do the same. "These people are committed to making a difference."
But for illiterate members of the community who haven't yet established a relationship with a tutor, the future is uncertain.
"The volunteers need someone or some way of connecting with the people that need our services," said Zimmerman.
Gwen Wysocki: "Warning labels, medication - (literacy) affects so much in our life that I am baffled that the City Council, knowing how supportive they are of a number of programs, would not support this program."
"I think other communities are watching us and that when we make decisions we not only do it for us but to set an example for all communities that are struggling with the same decision."
Jill Robinson: "I really admire the students in the program. If you can imagine being an adult and admitting that you can't read well - I think the students in the program are very brave."
"They just believe that they can do things they didnt think they did before. I cant believe the city would not fund this program. The cost is so small in comparison (to other spending.)"
Trudy Waldron: "I just an unable to fathom that our City Council, with the intelligence that is represented there - either they don't understand scope of program or our financial situation must be in much more dire financial straits that the general public is aware of."
"One of our homework requirements is for our students to read with or to their parents on a daily basis. It has come to my attention more than once ... that parents cannot read to their students. ... Even (some) English-speaking parents dont feel comfortable helping their children read."
Pete Zimmerman: "This is really the only adult-oriented program in the Inland Empire."
"I think I've almost gotten more out of the program than I have given."
"Literacy is such an important think in today's society. Not to have that ability is incomprehensible."
"We're all volunteer tutors. There's nothing to stop us (from continuing to teach)."
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