The 0.8 mill levy to help restore the funding of the Wood County District Public Library was approved last night with 57.93 percent of the votes for the levy.

Congratulations and high fives filled the first floor of the Wood County District Public Library as local residents learned of the levy’s approval from the Wood County Board of Election’s website.

Local resident and former University employee Clif Boutelle said he was more than pleased that the levy was approved.

“I felt pretty good about it from the start,” Boutelle said. “I hadn’t heard any negatives towards the levy since it was introduced. The library is an important community resource and I think the results speak for themselves.”

Boutelle said the community acted favorably towards the library levy.

“I feel as though I owe the community a great deal of thanks,” he said. “I just thank everyone who supported this because now the library can stop cutting their hours and start meeting our needs.”

President of the Board of Trustees, Brian Paskvan, said he is grateful that the library levy was approved and is ready to start creating a plan of where the new revenue will go throughout the next five years.

“The money is not going to come immediately,” Paskvan said. “Right now we are going to focus on making a plan to restore the library’s hours and get more materials such as books, magazine subscriptions and DVDs, since these are the things that the library has had to cut back on.”

The money from the levy usually takes a good amount of time before it can actually be put to use, Paskvan said. The library will likely not see any of the funding until the January of next year.

“While we are waiting for the money to come in, we can only hope that additional cuts and closures will not have to be made,” he said. “We have already had to significantly cut back on business hours and employee wages, and I do not anticipate these conditions to worsen.”

The Board of Trustees Finance Committee will turn their attention to the new funding immediately, Paskvan said.

Director of the Wood County District Public Library Elain Paulette said she is ecstatic that the levy was approved.

“I am so happy and appreciative of all those that helped make this happen; the employees of the Board [of trustees], the volunteers and to everyone who voted, this seems unreal to me,” Paulette said. “They really have no idea how important this is for our community.”

Paulette said the library will not waste any time getting down to business. The Board will meet in a week to discuss how the library can restore all it has lost within the past few years.

“I hope that the residents of Wood County can understand that the funding will not be evident and show up immediately,” she said. “It will take some time for there to be an obvious difference in how the library functions, although we do not anticipate any more cuts.”