CACHE COUNTY – During a public hearing on their proposed 2026 budget, members of the Cache County Council got another earful of complaints about tentative plans to close the county library for local residents.
Those complaints came mostly from female residents of Providence, who enjoy close proximity to the county-run facility at 15 North Main in Providence. But residents of Logan, North Logan and Hyde Park were also on hand to voice their support for continuing funding of the library.
In their comments to council members, Emily Waterson and Hannah Mortensen of Providence both expressed that the loss of library access would be personal to them.
The proposal to cut the County Library’s meager funding of $235,000 a year is part of an effort by County Executive George Daines to cope with a $7.6 million shortfall in revenues projected in the county’s budget for 2026.
Daines has recommended $2.8 million in budget cuts, including all funding for the library. The County Council members are also planning to raise $3.7 million in new revenues via an 18 percent property tax increase, leaving only a slightly more than a $1 million shortfall remaining.
Daines’ rationale for the proposed library budget cut is that 80 percent of county residents are already being taxed to support various municipal libraries. From south to north, those facilities are in Hyrum, Mendon, Logan, North Logan, Smithfield, Richmond and Lewiston.
Since Cache County also taxes its residents for library service, he questions whether it’s fair that residents of those towns should be double-taxed to provide services to 20 percent of Cache residents not served by these municipal libraries.
Recent analysis by Deputy Executive Curt Webb has also revealed that 70 percent of Cache County Library business comes from the cities of Providence, River Heights and Millville, all of which have chosen not to fund their own municipal libraries, along with Paradise and Hyde Park.
Under pressure from the library’s staff and patrons who authored more than 1,200 e-mail recent messages of support, Daines has already reconsidered his plans to entirely end the library’s services.
The county executive is now proposing to provide six-months of funding for the library stating on Jan.1, 2026, plus a complicated supplemental plan for those who would eventually lose library services.
But Providence resident Natalie DeFriez offered an alternative plan for county officials to consider.
Citing a personal background in sales, DeFriez offered on Dec. 2 to mount a public campaign to find sufficient donors to entirely alleviate the county’s financial burden of funding the library.
“I am a citizen who is absolutely willing to come in and put that (financial) load on my own shoulders,” she pledged.
The County Council members have been debating whether the Cache County Library should live or die since October, when Daines first announced his list of tentative budget cuts.
A decision on funding for the library and other budget priorities is scheduled to be finalized at the next meeting of the Cache County Council set for 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 9.