The Allegheny Regional Asset District board yesterday rejected a revised fund-sharing formula for the county's 44 community libraries because the new approach fails to encourage financial contributions from their communities.

The board was also concerned that the plan, intended to take effect next year, could result in "swift changes in funding levels," it said in a statement. "Those (libraries) that experience (funding) declines will find them difficult to absorb with short notice."

The decision to send the formula back to libraries for revision was announced during the RAD board's annual session to distribute funds for next year from sales tax revenues.

Supervised by the Allegheny County Library Association, the revisions were nearly three years in the making and were finally approved by representatives of the libraries in May after "weeks, and weeks, and weeks" of meetings and discussions, said ACLA Director Marilyn Jenkins.

RAD's preliminary budget includes $5.6 million in ACLA funding for 2010, the same amount received this year.

The new formula for libraries revised one imposed in 1995 shortly after the RAD system began. It was proposed to make that formula "simple, equitable and predictable in its funding," Mrs. Jenkins said.

"This will be disappointing to many of the folks who worked to come up with what they thought was a fair formula after a very arduous and long process," said Stephanie Flom, executive director of Lauri Ann West Library in O'Hara. "In theory, it was broadly felt that the new formula was a better way to divide the money."

The representatives agreed to drop the local-support factor, Ms. Flom said, because "what happened, in reality, was that it didn't work as an incentive for municipalities to support their libraries."

For example, Wilkinsburg is the only government to direct a portion of its tax revenues to the library. Without that, the library stood to lose $54,402 next year.

In its place, the representatives included a "distressed community" factor, determined by the state, which evaluates financial strength of communities where libraries are located.

Yesterday's RAD meeting was attended by Mt. Lebanon Public Library Director Cynthia Richey, who said she was encouraged by the recommendation that ACLA come back with a formula that would not penalize those community libraries receiving support from their local governments. She noted that even with a different formula, Mt. Lebanon stands to lose more funding than any other ACLA-member libraries.

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