Business magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie once said, “There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the free public library….” In San Joaquin County, that cradle could soon be rocked.

As the library system’s operators — San Joaquin County and the city of Stockton — face budget deficits in 2010-11, those governments are considering having a private company take over management of the local library system, according to several sources.

The library system is now a partnership between Stockton and the county, with both contributing tax funds and the city contracted to manage the libraries. But both give different amounts to the library’s $10 million budget — $5.3 million from the county and $4.1 million from the city — and have differing management duties.

San Joaquin County spends a fixed percentage of its property tax income to contract with the city of Stockton to manage libraries outside that city, including branches in Tracy and Mountain House.

Tracy and Mountain House, however, own their library buildings, are responsible for their upkeep and have the option of paying the county to keep the libraries open more than the county could otherwise afford.

Stockton provides money out of its general fund, an amount Stockton’s City Council can change year to year. That city also runs the four branches inside its city limits.

According to representatives of Library Systems and Services LLC, a company that has reportedly submitted a bid to manage the local library system and runs 63 libraries in five states, it’s an arrangement that grew over the decades with little strategic planning. Robert Windrow, LSSI’s vice president, said private management offers the county a chance to change that, while simultaneously doing more for library users and reducing costs.

“We’re quite confident we can do that here,” said Windrow, who claimed the centralized bookkeeping and support system of companies like LSSI leads to efficiencies that local governments often can’t match.

Windrow touted his company’s past successes in partnering with governments to manage public libraries, especially in Riverside County, where LSSI has been involved for 13 years and helped build nine new libraries, institute numerous literacy and English-as-a-second-language programs and install a print-on-demand system from which patrons can print books from online sources.

“We’re confident that our business model of managing public libraries will provide the highest level of library services to all the branch libraries in San Joaquin County for the funding the county has available,” Windrow said.

Though Windrow would not disclose the details of LSSI’s under-review bid, he did say that his company, if selected, would not charge library patrons an entry fee and that all fees and fines would be determined by county officials, as they are now.

According to Rod Buchanan, the head of Tracy’s Parks and Community Services Department, the bidding process itself could benefit people in Tracy, who pay more than $48,000 a year through city taxes to keep the Tracy Branch Library open extra hours. Mountain House residents also pay extra — more than $37,000 annually — for more hours at their library.

“A competitive bidding environment could mean either reduced costs or increased services for our citizens,” Buchanan said.

He cautioned, though, that the true result of any specific bid to take over management of the local library won’t be known until bids are made public.

Chris Freeman, who manages day-to-day operations for the county library system, said plenty of improvements already were being made before the bidding process began.

In 2008-09, the San Joaquin County Grand Jury issued a report finding “mismanagement, ineffective leadership, questionable use of public funds, low staff morale and general discontent within the Stockton-San Joaquin County Library System.”

Freeman said his four-month tenure, as well as a new commitment to the libraries’ strategic plan, is turning that situation around.

“The people in this library want to do a good job and are very enthusiastic about continually improving library services,” Freeman said.

Freeman said seven of eight county library branches — including those in Tracy and Mountain House — have expanded or maintained hours this year. He added that each county library has at least one person with a master’s degree in library science, something he wasn’t sure would be true if a private firm took over the system’s management.

LSSI spokesman Mike MeCey, however, said that all libraries managed by the company have “advanced-degree librarians” and that services would not suffer under LSSI stewardship.

Though Freeman didn’t offer a personal opinion about a partnership between the county and a company, he said the library system now offers the public the guarantee of a valuable resource staffed by experienced professionals.

Some voices, though, have emerged in clear opposition to the partnership.

The Friends of the Stockton Public Library group has urged an extensive review of any proposal under the California Environmental Quality Act, a process for analyzing what a plan would mean for the surrounding environment and community, based on the argument that “The difference between public-interest and for-profit motives is profound, and outsourcing to a private company can result in negative economic, social and cultural impacts to the community.”

And Colleen Foster, a former director of the Stockton-San Joaquin public libraries, is on record opposing the move.

“I think we will lose local control and accountability,” Foster told an area business journal. “There’s really no guarantee that services will be improved.

“To shift library priorities toward serving the bottom line of a private company is inconsistent with the purpose of a public library.”

Windrow, however, said that LSSI succeeds only when it offers more to the public than a fully government-run system can. And, he added, LSSI would not be in charge of setting content rules or policies for local libraries — that’s a job left in the hands of government officials, he said, who are beholden to their constituents.

LSSI, Windrow argued, is merely there to manage the day-to-day workings of the libraries in the most efficient way possible.

A change in management could mean serious change for some of the people who staff local libraries. While LSSI touts that between 80 and 90 percent of existing employees are typically retained when the company takes over a library, there are no guarantees.

San Joaquin County and Stockton are still reviewing any bids regarding a change in library management, and it won’t be known for some time what decision will be made.

But Windrow said that whether the system remains completely in government hands or is partially outsourced, the people will win, because opening the libraries’ operation to competition can only result in a more efficient, better organization.

“I think that the county is very wise in what it’s doing,” Windrow said.

At a glance

Funding for county libraries comes from several sources:

• San Joaquin County $5,276,586

• Stockton $4,111,205

• Fines, fees $219,000

• State funds $106,000

• City contributions* $149,000

• Other $137,000

• Total $9,998,791

* From Tracy, Mountain House, Manteca and Ripon