Racine - Budget woes forced the Racine Unified School District to cut library services in more of its elementary schools for this school year, leaving only one of the district's 21 elementary schools with a full-time librarian.

District officials this spring said they would work to keep cuts as far away from the classroom as they could in an effort to fix a $3.3 million budget shortfall after the Racine Unified School Board cancelled a June referendum. A few months later, they informed 10 schools that they would have to make do with less library time.

However, district librarians say the cuts, which they learned about in August, do affect children, who now receive half as much instructional time in the library as they did the previous year. While the district did not cut any librarian positions, district officials reduced the amount of time students spend with a trained librarian.

This summer, 10 more elementary schools learned that they would have to share librarians, which requires one librarian to split their time between two different schools. The district did the same thing at 10 other schools the previous year.

Gifford Elementary School is the only school with a full-time librarian, because of its enrollment, district officials said.

Karen Weber, librarian for the past 20 years at Schulte Elementary School in Sturtevant, said the work librarians do in the 21st century is a far cry from what it used to be, which makes the cuts even more painful.

"We have things that we are supposed to be teaching the kids that are aligned with state standards," Weber said. "We do teach classes. We do teach kids how to use the library

These things aren't going to be taught to kids, which is sad."

Weber said the reductions affect not only her students, but the teachers in the district, too. Teachers often prepare for their students during the time they spend in the library, Weber said.

The cuts come at a time when there is little left to cut, according to Bill Levin, Unified's director of library services. Levin, who has worked in Unified for 15 years, has watched the district cut in his department over the past two years and it hasn't been easy.

The community doesn't have a good sense of the limited resources with which the district has to work, Levin said.

"You talk about cutting to the bone. You see bone now," Levin said. "There's no fat. There's no tissue. There's just raw bone."

The library cuts come after district officials announced in June that they would reduce a number of educational assistants, roughly 30 positions, to help make up the budget shortfall.

Dona Sens, one of Unified's area superintendents, said the last 10 schools found out late in the summer because district officials had hoped to find savings elsewhere.

"The current reality is that is what is happening in many school districts. We're not the only one's doing this," Sens said. "We don't think it's optimal to have part-time librarians."