DANVILLE, Ill. (WCIA) -- The City of Danville has asked one of its city partners to make a large budget cut.
The Mayor of Danville, Rickey Williams, proposed that the library decrease its budget by half a million dollars, and the library said that's a 25% cut.
Williams said that he's not proposing cuts without proposing support. He suggested that the library let the city take on tasks like handling payroll and landscaping instead of outsourcing.
"Do you have any redundancies or anything that you can cut or any position that you can cut and still provide our citizens with the same service?"
These are questions Mayor Williams is asking the library after the city proposed a budget cut.
"A $500,000 cut would be catastrophic," the Interim Executive Director of the Danville Public Library, Ruey Sandusky said.
"I'm not trying to close the library. I'm not trying to even change their hours or eliminate services they provide, but my thing is, if we can provide our citizens with the same level of service for reduced costs, I think it's my responsibility to the taxpayers, to the citizens that are providing the money for those salaries, to provide relief."
However, Sandusky said that's just not possible if they have to decrease their budget by $500,000.
"We would have to, not only reduce hours because we would not have enough staff to be open the amount of hours we are now. We would have to reduce our programming because we have to have staff to run the programs," Sandusky said.
She added that cutting their hours would impact how well they serve the people of Danville.
"This is a place that anyone can come, and anyone is welcome. It's a safe space and very needed in our community," Sandusky said.
One of the reasons behind Williams' request: a decrease in state funding. A State Use Tax used to give Danville $36 per citizen, but now, it's only $6.
"We have roughly 30,000 citizens, so that is essentially almost a $1,000,000 in revenue that we had. We thought that was taking effect next year; it's actually already taken effect this year," Williams said.
He also said that another reason for the ask of budget cuts: the three fire stations in Danville all need significant repairs.
At the end of the day, both sides are working together.
"I want to be clear; we absolutely support the library. It's one of our most important institutions in our community," Williams said.
Sandusky also added that she believes $200,000 is the most they could cut without drastically changing their work or significantly reducing staff.
"We want to be a good partner for the city, and we definitely understand the money has to come from somewhere," she said.