Timberland Regional Library (TRL) announced Wednesday that it will implement a series of budget reductions in 2026 in response to an immediate and projected funding shortfall driven by rising costs, a decreasing levy rate, and limited annual revenue growth.
Following the completion of year-end financial documentation for 2025, TRL identified a shortfall in its beginning fund balance for 2026, which by policy must start each year at 30% of estimated revenues. Since 2016, TRL has openly discussed long-term financial challenges and imminent revenue shortfalls. The timing and extent of this shows that expenditures are now outpacing revenues beyond what can be addressed through incremental adjustments.
“Like many public agencies, we are facing the reality that costs are increasing faster than revenues,” said Cheryl Heywood, executive director of Timberland Regional Library. “We have taken steps over several years to adapt through organizational changes and new technologies, but we have reached a point where more significant actions are necessary to ensure long-term sustainability.”
In the coming months, community members may see impacts that include:
An estimated $1.8 million reduction to the collections budget, resulting in fewer new materials purchased
Fewer library programs due to reduced use of paid performers and presenters
A reduction in free printing to $20 per month effective March 1
Additional operational changes include significant reductions in supplies and non-essential purchases, limits on employee travel for conferences and training, and an immediate hiring freeze. TRL has also begun planning for staffing reductions to take effect May 1.
Library leadership is working closely with the Board of Trustees to identify a sustainable path forward while remaining guided by the library’s Strategic Direction and Mission, Vision, and Values.
“We know this news is difficult, and we do not take these decisions lightly,” Heywood said. “Our commitment is to continue serving our communities as fully as possible while being responsible stewards of public resources.”
Supply chain issues
According to a blog post written by Kim S. on the Timberland Regional Library’s website, libraries across the country have experienced a slowdown in getting new material into the hands of users as a result of some recent (and dramatic) changes in the supply chains TRL relies on. Last October, Baker & Taylor (B&T), one of the primary vendors for books and media to libraries, suddenly announced their intended closure by the end of 2025. B&T had been experiencing internal business issues for many months, so this was not unexpected news for many libraries, and TRL had already moved away from B&T for many items, including Lucky Day books and other high demand titles.
Publisher’s Weekly reported in October, “The swift collapse of B&T did not come as a complete surprise to librarians, who had been experiencing a growing number of issues with the company. Those problems were compounded when, as part of the agreement with ReaderLink, B&T canceled orders with publishers to prepare for a new ordering system with ReaderLink that never came.”
Kim S. wrote that while B&T was not TRL’s primary vendor, the sudden closure of B&T has had a spillover effect on other main book vendors as they try to absorb the massive influx of new orders from other libraries. This has caused a slowdown to the entire library materials ordering ecosystem. These vendors have assured TRL that they have been scaling up their infrastructure to accommodate the increase in orders and believe that they will be back to normal delivery times soon.
Grays Harbor County branches of TRL are not immune to the delays.
Evi Buell, regional manager for west Grays Harbor branches of TRL, says, “This impacts the entire system, resulting in a slowdown for how materials are distributed to branches. We’re hopeful that these ripple effects will fade away in the near future.”
According to Publisher’s Weekly, Amazon, Ingram and New Jersey-based book wholesaler Bookazine have stepped into the breach to help.
Kim S. went on to write that there has been some improvement in the last month or so, but there are still significant delays in some orders. While TRL was still getting many titles before their publication dates in early 2025 (so they could be cataloged and put out for delivery on the publication date), this has become a rare occurrence. Vendors have informed TRL that this is a combination of not receiving books from publishers as early as they used to and the inability so far to scale up in pre-processing and shipping.
While TRL waits for delivery times to improve, staff have been taking steps to alleviate the wait times and get material to patrons as quickly as possible. Like many libraries, TRL typically receives material that is “pre-processed” by vendors, meaning that the Mylar jackets, barcodes and tags have already been applied to the items, saving library staff time once the materials arrive. While TRL is no longer set up to do mass processing, TRL has recently ordered unprocessed material and processed the items in-house as fast as possible. Additionally, TRL has contracted with additional vendors to spread out some of its orders and have worked with its primary vendor to facilitate some “rush” orders for high-demand items.
TRL acknowledges that the increased wait time for new materials has been frustrating.
