Holmes commissioners support law library

While many people in Holmes County may not even known the Holmes County Law Library exists on the second floor of the Holmes County Courthouse, it plays a major role in providing information to both people in the law world and any community member wishing to learn more regarding any legal situation they are experiencing.

Over the years the Holmes County Law Library’s board has survived on funds created in part from fines and costs generated through the municipal court, but as revenue continues to dry up, the reserve funds have shrunk.

A trio of law library board members met with Holmes County Commissioners on Monday, June 30 to discuss getting a commitment from the commissioners to set aside funds to help them remain solvent.

Members Jeff Ginsburg, Max Miller and Pamela Maxwell met with the commissioners in hopes of having the county commit $20,000 annually to the board, a number they believe would be sufficient in providing the public with everything they need.

“Those (municipal court) revenues used to provide the library with everything we needed and more,” Ginsburg said.

The library provides the public with hard copy publications, periodicals, up-to-date changes in the law, and LexisNexis, an American data analytics company headquartered in New York whose products include databases that are accessed through online portals including portals for computer-assisted legal research, newspaper search and consumer information.

“The world has changed dramatically, and as people are being driven toward online legal research, books are more expensive,” Ginsburg said. “We have dramatically cut our book subscriptions. We don’t carry any federal titles anymore. The ones we typically buy are the ones we know judges and magistrates really like.”

Ginsburg said up through 2016 the library was receiving funding of around $52,000. From 2017-19 that revenue dropped to around $40,000 and witnessed further decline, now receiving $37,000 annually.

“Since COVID our revenues have been around $37,000, and they aren’t any better this year,” Ginsburg said. “I think that number will stay stable, but that stable level is not enough to provide the services we need to provide.”

He said in the short term, the law library had not yet made its IT Fund contribution of $3,000 and asked if the county could provide that funding for this year.

He then said if the commissioners could allocate $20,000 per year into the annual budget toward the law library, it would put them where they need to be to provide the necessary services.

The commissioners agreed to add that into the budget moving forward.

“Your books are fluid because the government doesn’t stop making new laws,” Commissioner Dave Hall said. “You’re constantly going to be facing new needs, and it is in the Ohio law that we require this law library information.”

Max Miller said in the early years of the law library’s existence, they were able to accumulate funds and had many ideas about how to best serve the community as a whole. However, the revenue began to decrease, and they began spending their reserves of nearly $130,000, which has since shrunk to $32,000.

“We could see it coming; it was going to go away,” Max Miller said. “We realized we were going to have to ask (the county) for help.”

Ginsburg said prior to this meeting, they did their due diligence in contacting several key authorities in the municipal court system to discuss the funding situation and allocations and why they were experiencing a decrease.

“You’re not the only law library in the state of Ohio coming to the commissioners for help,” Hall said.

Following that meeting, the commissioners called in Bob Sigler, county deputy clerk of finances, to get the $20,000 placed into the law library’s budget. Sigler said the county could take the funds out of contingency funds.