This article was written by WTOP’s news partner, The Banner Montgomery, and republished with permission. Subscribe to The Banner Montgomery here.
The Howard County Library System has quietly terminated 55 support staffers who primarily stack shelves, drawing a sharp rebuke from the system’s employees union.
Megan Royden, president of the Howard County library union, said the support staffers were caught completely off guard by Monday’s decision.
“We are angry about this, we are sad about this and we are disgusted that this is a decision that management has chosen to take,” Royden said in an interview.
At the Miller branch, where Royden works as an instructor and research specialist, she said there are 10 library support staff, also known as “shelfers.” They work a total of 94 hours a week — equivalent to the work of more than two full-time employees.
“That is an insurmountable amount of work,” said Royden. “These are the people who truly keep the day-to-day operations running.”
Christie Lassen, a library system spokesperson, stressed that no part-time or full-time staff were affected. The staffers were notified by phone on Monday.
“First we did not lay off employees,” Lassen wrote in an email. “We are phasing out the use of on-call staff, who work up to ten hours per week, as needed.”
The decision to remove the positions stems from “budget constraints,” Lassen said, and the work will now be absorbed by existing staff.
According to the county’s budget for the current fiscal year, the library system has 245 employees and a $27.3 million budget. Last year, the library’s budget grew by 3%, or $749,840.
Howard’s terminations come three months after the Baltimore County Public Library’s CEO abruptly laid off 14 part-time librarians, only to reinstate them after a public backlash.
The part-timers were laid off over Zoom and many had only an hour to pack their belongings in trash bags before being escorted out of their respective library branches. County Council members and residents blasted the move, and CEO Sonia Alcántara-Antoine and the system parted ways shortly afterward.
Royden said the union is encouraged by Baltimore County’s outcome and is “hopeful that our Howard County leadership will also try to live up to the values that the county has.” The 55 affected support staffers each work a maximum of 10 hours a week and are not part of the library’s union.
Lassen stressed that those affected were “not regular staff” and did not receive benefits from the library system. The library’s use of on-call staff has varied over the years, Lassen said, adding that no positions were mobilized during the pandemic.
Howard County library workers voted overwhelmingly to form a union in February 2024. Howard County Library Workers United, representing more than 200 library employees across the system’s six branches, is part of AFSCME Maryland Council 3.
The union in May ratified its inaugural contract, which included wage increases negotiated by the union and library management. However, union members still have yet to see that money. The union says it’s been told that paychecks should reflect the contract wages on March 6.
The new wages should have begun hitting paychecks on July 1, 2025, but Royden noted in a December budget hearing that the union had been “in a protracted arbitration with library management” because it claimed it had not gotten sufficient money from the county to cover the raises.
Library leaders, she added, managed to find the money to give themselves raises.
A seven-member board oversees the library’s operational system. The board’s next scheduled meeting is March 18 at the Savage Branch.
Safa Hira, a spokesperson for County Executive Calvin Ball, said that while the county government is a funding partner for the library system, it “does not have a role in operational and management decisions for HCLS.”
The library system is seeking a 7% funding increase for the next fiscal year, according to Lassen. This “big ask” would cover the 7% wage increases for all staff — which mirrors the 7% pay increase in the union’s contract — as well as strengthen professional development and expand the system’s collection and class offerings.
The library system may have to look for additional cuts if its full funding request isn’t met, Lassen said.
