Bemidji Public Library Cuts Hours, Loses Two Positions After County Budget Reductions

Two Bemidji Public Library employees will lose their jobs March 27 and the building will sit dark on Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays starting March 30, after Beltrami County's 2026 budget cut library funding by more than $170,000 and the library exhausted every alternative to avoid the reductions.

The Beltrami County Board approved the cuts in December 2025 as part of its budget and tax levy increase, dropping the county's 2026 allocation for the Bemidji Public Library and Blackduck Community Library to roughly $265,000 — the state minimum required to participate in a regional library system. In 2025, the county had allocated $437,725 for the two branches combined; the Kitchigami Regional Library System had requested just over $450,000 for 2026. Together, the two branches face a $185,598 reduction.

The new schedule for Bemidji takes effect Monday, March 30: open 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday, and closed the remaining three days. The Bemidji Pioneer reported the change drops operational hours from 56 to 39 per week. The library will also lose two full-time staffers, a reduction that Regional Branch Manager Sherilyn Warren described as roughly 33 percent of the library's workforce. The Blackduck Community Library will cut back to 20 hours per week, the minimum required by state law to retain funding.

Warren had made clear for months that the math left no other path. The combined 2025 materials budget for both libraries — books, DVDs, magazines — was $75,400. "Even if we committed to cutting all material purchases for 2026, we would still have to find over $100,000 to cut from our budget for 2026," Warren told KAXE last September. "Feasibly, the only way to do that would be to cut hours of operation and to cut staffing levels."

The Kitchigami Regional Library System Board considered a union proposal in January and asked the Bemidji Public Library to make the final decision on whether to disperse available funds. The local authority declined. The KRLS Board reaffirmed that decision in February, and with no additional funding secured, the cuts became final.

The human toll of that decision has weighed on Warren personally. "There's only nine of us at work here, so we're very close," she said. "I'm laying awake at night trying to think how I can make this as minimal as possible without affecting their lives, but it's just not — it's just not possible. People's lives are going to be affected by this. And it's heartbreaking to me; I'm making some really difficult decisions."

Community members who testified before the county board in 2025 warned of concrete consequences: a tutor who goes by Christie and holds a master's degree in literacy described how the library's digital checkout limits already block patrons from accessing e-books after roughly 1 p.m. most days. "What does that mean when I'm tutoring at 7 p.m.? It means we can't use the library to get books," she told the board. Another commenter, Sherry, a longtime library supporter, posed the question in broader terms: "Do we value education and the promotion of literacy? Do we value a safe, quiet space where you can just be and not have to buy something?"

Those questions went unanswered when the county locked in its budget. The library closes for the first time under its new schedule on Saturday, March 28.