“We can talk about this until we are blue in the face, but the reality is, this is the fourth time it’s come up for discussion since 1995,” Ward County Commissioner and committee member Miranda Schuler said at the group’s first meeting Wednesday, Feb. 11. “It’s going to just continue to come up every so many years and we don’t act on it. At least let the citizens vote.”

“There’s a reason that it keeps coming up. It’s a public perception,” said County Commissioner and committee member Ron Merritt. “It’s been gone through before. It’s not going to go away.”

Merger of the two libraries often comes up in public suggestions for saving tax dollars.

There was talk about a merger in the mid-1990s but not much history is available on those discussions, Minot Public Library Director Josh Pikka said. In May 1998, the county commission asked for a joint board to study how the libraries can work together. That August, Ward County withdrew from the discussions. The city continued to look into it until December, when it received a legal opinion that the libraries would have to equalize their mill levies, Pikka reported.

Jill Schramm/MDN Burlington-Des Lacs Elementary students Gunner Glascoe, left, and Granger Wambeke, right, look through books as they search for reading material they want to check out from the Ward County Bookmobile, which stopped at their school Tuesday, Feb. 10.

He also reported discussions were renewed in October 2005 to look at cost savings. It was determined co-locating could save more than $10,600 annually in utility reductions, elimination of a clerical worker and shared databases. However, the study identified problems with space that could require a new building. A state Attorney General’s opinion found the levies would not have to be equalized, but the county again withdrew over concerns about losing resources due to lack of space.

In June 2018, another committee was formed. It was determined a merger could save about $97,000 a year, with the loss of two full-time and two part-time staff members, but, again, space concerns arose. The Attorney General issued an opinion that a merger would require an election. The city council voted to place a measure on the ballot, but the county commission did not, ending the discussion.

City Council and committee member Lisa Olson said the findings from those past studies remain relevant.

“Space is still an issue. Representation between the city and county is an issue. The bookmobile is an issue. Nothing has changed there. So really, I think the purpose of us meeting is to determine if there is any type of cost savings,” Olson said.

There was discussion on overlap and duplication, which a previous committee study found to be about 40% between the libraries.

Jill Schramm/MDN Emma Haugen, right, checks out a book with Chole Brooks, left, on the Ward County Bookmobile during its stop at Burlington-Des Lacs Elementary Tuesday, Feb. 10.

Pikka said there is some duplication in older books, such as volumes of the classics that libraries need to have, but overlap in newer materials isn’t necessarily duplication.

“Demand is not going to go down just because the library is in the same place. The people haven’t changed. The people haven’t combined,” he said. “So the overlap I don’t see as being maybe as big as we think it might be.”

“The two libraries, even though they are separate entities, do work a lot together,” Ward County Library Director Kerrianne Boetcher added.

Based on previous studies, the committee leaned into the idea that a co-location would take place at the Minot library site.

However, committee member Christine Cherry, with the Minot Public Library Board, said a space analysis shows the Minot library is outgrowing its building.

“It is already impacting our services, specifically to our teen population,” she said. “When we did that space analysis, it would cost $5 million in order to rework that space so that it could work for us in a way that better provides services to our underserved populations. That is including things like our ADA compliance.”

Additionally, she spoke about the library’s situation in the flood plain. The 2011 flood caused nearly $90,000 in damage and shut down the library temporarily, prompting the Ward County library to step up to fill in the gap, she said.

The Minot library will come out of the flood plain after completion of the Maple Diversion portion of the flood protection project. City Council and committee member Rob Fuller said that likely won’t occur until 2030. Work on the Maple Diversion phase is tentatively set to reach 100% design completion this year.

The committee considered information from Morton Mandan Public Library, serving Morton County and Mandan, and the James River Valley Library, serving Jamestown and Stutsman County. Those consolidations followed different models. Morton Mandan has one library, and James River Valley maintains city and county locations. The libraries’ mill levy sharing also differs, but the county’s share is less in both instances.

Locally, Ward County levies 2.7 mills of the 4 mills it is permitted to levy by law, while the City of Minot levied just over $2 million for 2026, or about 8 mills, according to information provided to the committee.

Pikka reported the Morton Mandan library stressed its merger was for the purpose of better service and the good of patrons. It did not initially see a cost savings, nor was the James River Valley merger an easy transition to cost savings, he added.

Merritt said the merger of the Minot Park District and Minot Recreation Commission in 2019 has seen its cost savings only over the longer term.

The committee listed retaining and expanding services as a merger goal. Bringing bookmobile services into the city of Minot would be an example of a desired expansion.

“Right now, our bookmobile doesn’t have the ability to expand with our current staffing and without extending hours,” said committee member Tami Ware of Kenmare, a member of the Ward County Library Board.

The committee will meet again on March 18 at 1 p.m. in Minot City Hall.