Lawmakers restore funding to library borrowing program

By Nicole Caru­so | Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut
April 13, 2026

A pro­posed 20% cut in a state pro­gram that lets library patrons check out books from pub­lic libraries beyond their own town or city has been restored by the Gen­er­al Assembly’s Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee, an offi­cial of the Con­necti­cut State Library said Mon­day.

Dawn La Valle, the direc­tor of the Divi­sion of Library Devel­op­ment, said in an email that the com­mit­tee has restored $140,000 for the 50-year-old bor­row­IT CT pro­gram in its bud­get pro­pos­al.

“We are cau­tious­ly opti­mistic that bor­row­IT CT will be fund­ed at [the] cur­rent lev­el,’’ she said.

In Feb­ru­ary, Gov. Ned Lam­ont had pro­posed the $140,000, or 20%, cut in the program’s bud­get of about $700,000 for 2027, and library advo­cates have been lob­by­ing for its restora­tion since then. The pro­posed cut caused con­cern that some libraries would drop out of the pro­gram if they deter­mined that the reim­burse­ment was not worth the cost of lend­ing mate­ri­als, La Valle said.

“I can def­i­nite­ly fore­see that hap­pen­ing,” La Valle said. “Some libraries might just not see the pur­pose if the reim­burse­ment funds decrease.”

Some res­i­dents have tak­en the pro­gram for grant­ed, she said, and aren’t aware of the fund­ing mech­a­nism.

“Most res­i­dents just know that they can take their library card and go use it at anoth­er library,” La Valle said. “A lot of them do not know this pro­gram even exists.”

The pro­gram, estab­lished in 1974 and orig­i­nal­ly known as Con­nec­ti­card, has enabled libraries to loan more than 156 mil­lion items over the past 50 years, accord­ing to data from the state. A total of 191 pub­lic libraries par­tic­i­pate in bor­row­IT CT.

When the Will­ing­ton Pub­lic Library doesn’t have a par­tic­u­lar book avail­able, library direc­tor Steve Osier encour­ages patrons to check it out from anoth­er library through bor­row­IT CT.

When a library loans out mate­ri­als to non-res­i­dents, the state library then reim­burs­es it 14 cents per trans­ac­tion. The library can then use the funds to buy more books or sup­plies. Lamont’s pro­posed cut would have dropped the reim­burse­ment rate to less than 10 cents, La Valle said.

Osier said patrons at his library bor­rowed 6,683 items from oth­er libraries in 2025, about twice the num­ber of books patrons from oth­er towns bor­rowed from Will­ing­ton.

“We can get the big hits and the best­sellers, but we can’t always get every­thing,” Osier said.

Dur­ing fis­cal year 2025, Con­necti­cut libraries loaned more than 2.5 mil­lion items to non-res­i­dents through the pro­gram, accord­ing to data from the state.

While the reim­burse­ment amount may seem small, it adds up quick­ly for the libraries that lend thou­sands of mate­ri­als each year. If libraries had to pur­chase every item that their res­i­dents bor­rowed through the pro­gram, it would cost more than $35 mil­lion annu­al­ly, accord­ing to data from the state library

This pro­gram is impor­tant for libraries in rur­al towns where their library col­lec­tions are sig­nif­i­cant­ly small­er than those of larg­er towns and cities. Osier men­tioned this con­cern in his writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny to the Gen­er­al Assem­bly.

“A fund­ing reduc­tion of this size risks dis­cour­ag­ing libraries from par­tic­i­pat­ing, weak­en­ing resource shar­ing statewide and reduc­ing access for patrons—particularly those in com­mu­ni­ties with few­er local resources,” Osier wrote.

Fund­ing for the pro­gram has already declined over time. Bor­row­IT CT’s cur­rent fund­ing lev­el is just slight­ly over half of what it was in 2008, includ­ing infla­tion, accord­ing to data from the state.

Erin Dum­mey­er, the pres­i­dent of the Con­necti­cut Library Asso­ci­a­tion and direc­tor of the Mark Twain Library in Red­ding, said that Con­necti­cut already ranks low in state fund­ing for pub­lic libraries com­pared to oth­er states.

Dum­mey­er said fund­ing has remained flat in recent years even as the costs of books and oth­er mate­ri­als has increased, putting extra strain on the library bud­gets. She added that despite these chal­lenges, demand for bor­row­IT CT has remained strong and the reim­burse­ment mon­ey allows libraries to add ser­vices they oth­er­wise could not afford.

“I heard of one library that used the reim­burse­ment funds to fund a staff posi­tion before town fund­ing kicked in and it allowed that per­son to be hired ear­li­er,” Dum­mey­er said.

As law­mak­ers con­tin­ue to debate the pro­posed state bud­get, fund­ing for the pro­gram remains unclear.

“I don’t see why we should be cut­ting mon­ey from the pro­gram because in the scheme of things, it’s not a lot of mon­ey rel­a­tive to the big state bud­get,” State Sen. Jeff Gor­don, R‑Woodstock, said. “I do sup­port peo­ple being able to access their libraries includ­ing libraries in var­i­ous towns and I don’t see why we should lim­it that.”

Leigh Hoadley, a part-time staff mem­ber at the Will­ing­ton library who lives in Mans­field, said the pro­gram makes it more con­ve­nient to check out books for her­self and her three chil­dren in Will­ing­ton as a non-res­i­dent.

“They love read­ing,” Hoadley said. “It opens up a mag­i­cal world to them every time they start a book.”

Nicole Caru­so is major­ing in Jour­nal­ism and Eng­lish at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut.