Analyzing Timberland Regional Library’s 2018 Capital Facilities Proposal
Timberland Regional Library's cost-cutting measures that reduce staffing and library access connect back to a proposal rejected in 2018.
by Caelen McQuilken
To better understand the developing story at Timberland Regional Library (TRL), Works in Progress looks back to 2018, when the TRL administration released its Capital Facilities Proposal (CFP), a long-term strategic plan that addressed funding, service models, and staffing.
The CFP included major staffing reductions and the closure of a third of the system’s branches. This was met with strong community pushback across all five counties TRL serves, and the Board of Trustees ultimately voted to dissolve the proposal. Today, some library staff and former trustee Brenda Hirschi question whether the administration’s response to the 2026 budget shortfall of $3.8 million is a way to implement the scrapped 2018 proposal.
Many of the cost-cutting proposals to address the shortfall are similar to those described in the CFP. For example, the CFP is the first place TRL formally proposed the Expanded Access Hours (EAH) model (then referred to as “Open+”), according to TRL Public Information Officer Chris Chrzan. In the EAH model, a library building is unstaffed and patrons enter using an access card. In 2018 and now in 2026, the administration has proposed replacing staffed library hours with EAH to reduce costs.
TRL administrators have also pointed to the connections between the CFP and the 2026 shortfall. In a Microsoft Teams conversation on Feb. 9, 2026, obtained through an open records request and publicly shared by a Reddit user, Operations Director Brenda Lane and Finance Administrator Paige Preston discussed the CFP. Preston wrote (presumably referring to the Board of Trustees), “I get it though, they’re trying to turn this whole thing into another CFP debacle.” Lane responded, “They certainly are. And if we are not smart about it, it will go the same way.”
For these reasons, the CFP warrants a closer look. Here, Works in Progress analyzes the document and explores what the public can learn from it.
Breaking Down the CFP
The CFP is a 98-page document with eight sections. The information falls into three main categories: data about TRL, research about different library models, and proposals for changes within the system.
Proposals for system changes focused on shifting library and staffing models. Most of the alternative library models in the CFP require fewer staff. For example, the proposal highlighted the “LibraryExpress,” a “coffee-stand style service point” where patrons could pick up and return books and park to use free WiFi. The stand, staffed by one or two library assistants, would not have its own book collection; patrons could browse books recently returned to the stand.
Under the CFP’s proposed staffing plan, library assistants would “provide the backbone of coverage in all library models,” while librarians, who are paid more because they are required to have a Master of Library and Information Sciences degree, would shift to serving multiple branches within a geographic area instead of single branch.
The proposal put forward two new staffing metrics: one librarian FTE (i.e., full-time hours, which could mean two half-time librarians, etc.) per population of 10,000 and two staff (including librarians and library assistants) on the floor per 20 borrowers per hour. For rural branches that often have fewer than 20 borrowers per hour, this metric would mean staffing the library with only one librarian at a time instead of two, which was not TRL policy at the time the proposal was released.
The CFP also included changes to the branches. Out of 27 branches, the CFP would have closed and vacated 11 branches and reduced staffed hours at six others. Six library “hubs” in high population areas would absorb some staff, materials, and patrons from the closed branches.
In Grays Harbor County, for example, the CFP would have closed four out of eight TRL branches: Amanda Park, Hoquiam, Montesano, and Oakville. The staff from these branches would be reassigned to mobile services at the Aberdeen or Elma branches. Meanwhile, the proposal would have switched the Westport and McCleary branches to EAH and reduced staffed hours there.
Implied but not fully stated in the CFP is that staff would be laid off under these proposals. The proposal stated that overall goals included reducing staffing costs, and the reorganization of branches and shifts to staffing models aimed to reduce the number of staff needed to run the library system. The CFP did not, however, provide specific numbers for how many staff would have been laid off.
Lessons from the CFP
TRL has long presented models like EAH as ways to save money and reach more patrons. But the fallout from the CFP and the response to the 2026 budget shortfall show that 1) neither of these presumed outcomes are necessarily true, and 2) these models are being used to replace staffed library buildings — it’s not the models themselves but their implementation that poses a threat to library access.
Installing systems for EAH, which require things like extensive security camera networks and new locks and key card readers, is expensive. In Dec. 2018, The Daily World obtained documents that showed the CFP would have introduced new costs roughly equal to the money that would have been saved through staffing and branch reductions.
If used as additions to staffed library buildings, services like book lockers, bookmobiles, and EAH could truly expand library services and “reach more people,” as the CFP’s introduction claims. But the 16 pages of the CFP that proposed vacating and consolidating library branches led to deep community mistrust of models like EAH. Even though the proposal was scrapped, since 2018, most branches that provide EAH have also seen reductions in open, staffed hours.
In the Nov. 28, 2018 board meeting where the trustees voted down the CFP, they also voted to authorize Open+ (now called EAH) for a one-year testing period at the Winlock and McCleary branches. However, when one trustee later proposed steps towards implementing LibraryExpress and more mobile library services, other Trustees pushed back, seeing this as tantamount to approving much of proposal that had just been voted down. In the years since this meeting, TRL has expanded the EA program to twelve total branches and plans to continue. EA hours didn’t continue at the Winlock branch due to lack of public interest in the plan, according to Chrzan.
Former TRL trustee Nicolette Oliver recently addressed the use of EAH in the March 25, 2026 board meeting. “It hurts my heart as someone who voted for Expanded Access Hours,” she said. She described that EAH was supposed to be an addition to regular staffed hours that would allow people like working parents to better utilize library services, not a replacement for library staff. “I did not vote for Expanded Access in the way it is today,” she said.
The use of EAH to replace staffed hours has increased in response to the budget shortfall. As of May 19, 13 of TRL’s 29 branches have reduced their open staffed hours; four of those branches saw reductions of 10-16 hours per week.
As the fight to protect libraries achieves major victories like pausing most of the involuntary layoffs, it is crucial to continue monitoring the strategies the TRL administration uses to push policies through. With each library’s loss of staffed hours comes a loss in the life changing impacts library services make for patrons, but the story doesn’t end there. As community push back against the CFP shows, grassroots action strongly shapes the present and future of our libraries.
Caelen McQuilkin is a reporter from the high desert of eastern California who has loved the green of Olympia since moving here in August. They love reporting as a way to build connections while reflecting a place’s complex picture.