I Did Not Know That Michigan's Libraries Are

Heavily, and in some case majorly, funded by traffic tickets and penal fines. 

I had figured that library mileages on property taxes were responsible for the bulk of the funding. Apparently not.

Nor did I know, but I should have guessed, that Wayne County would manage to screw up the accounting and distribution for that funding. Badly.

The Detroit Free Press: Accounting errors have cost Wayne County libraries millions

Over the last decade, 18 libraries in Wayne County have been shorted as much as $1.9 million, while 11 saw an influx in cash, all because of staff turnover at the county level and subsequent accounting errors.

The money at issue flows through the state and comes from penal fines, which are paid to courts in criminal and some civil violations, including most traffic fines. County treasurers collect and distribute the fines to libraries. This funding is baked into state law and it can account for anywhere between 3% to 70% of public libraries' annual budgets, according to the Library of Michigan.

 Wayne County lost the employee who calculated penal fines and the county did not replace that position, according to a report the Library of Michigan prepared for public library directors and boards.

So interesting to know that a goodly amount of the fines from court goes to the state's libraries, hopefully helping the True Crime shelves be well stocked, and that Wayne County can impressively mess up the distribution of those funds.