Current contract canned after dispute with county officials

State officials have pledged emergency assistance for the Peachtree City Library, if necessary, for this summer when the countywide contract with the Flint River Regional Library System expires.

It’s possible that a deal could be worked out before then, said Randy Gaddo, the city’s director of leisure services. Since Peachtree City and Tyrone library officials want to continue receiving FRRLS services, it’s a possibility they may join together in a contract with the agency, Gaddo told the City Council last week.

Gaddo said city staff are “very skeptical” that the county could develop a stand-alone regional library system in six months or less. The main concern is maintaining the high level of service the city has come to expect, Gaddo added.

Although the Peachtree City Library pays for all its books, the FRRLS has a centralized system to order them, and FRRLS also prepares the books to be put on shelves. Also, FRRLS enters each book onto the PINES computer network, a task that no one at the Peachtree City Library is qualified to do, Gaddo has said.

Under the current contract, the city pays $15,000 a year for those services. But Fayette County officials began to question why it was paying roughly $70,000 a year to FRRLS for each person in the county (including the cities) and the cities still paid FRRLS for services. The situation got testy at times between county and FRRLS officials, reaching the point where the FRRLS board voted to terminate the contract with Fayette County starting this summer.

The Peachtree City Library has eight full-time and 12 part-time employees.