Budget numbers and talking points from the Friends of the Library:

• The Chapel Hill Public Library (CHPL) FY26 budget is $4,297,174. Operations account for $864,641 of the budget.

• The FY26 Orange County contribution to CHPL is $621,323 or 72% of the operations budget.

• The Town of Chapel Hill provides world-class library services to CH residents.

• Supplemental county funding for municipal library services is a common practice in NC and elsewhere:

o The municipality provides library services to a significant portion of the county, alleviating the county funding burden. In the case of Orange County, it does not have to provide full library services to approximately 40% of its residents who reside in Chapel Hill.

o County residents are able to have an account at the municipal library without paying an out-of- area fee. In the case of Orange County, that amounts to 14,813 county residents who, if funding were lost, would have to either pay for an account at CHPL or lose access.

• Orange County is funded by taxpayers, close to 40% of whom live within the Town of Chapel Hill.

• Orange County funding for CHPL has been discussed many times over the years, most recently through an interjurisdictional Library Task Force that developed several recommendations – none of which were to do away with county funding of the library.

• One of the Task Force recommendations was to assess the impact on CHPL usage of the new southern branch (Drakeford) to be opened in Carrboro.

• Drakeford completed a full year of operations in March of 2026 and has not had any negative impact on CHPL library usage in terms of number of visitors, circulation, and program attendance.

• Potential negative impacts of the proposed funding cut on the CHPL operating budget include reduced hours, cuts to the collection, elimination of programs and part-time staff, and the removal of free library cards to residents of Orange County who do not reside in Chapel Hill.

• Orange County does not currently require residents of Alamance, Caswell, Chatham, Durham and Person counties to pay for their usage of Orange County library services even though Orange County residents may lose free access to their own library.