News spread rapidly beyond the doors of the Key Center Library and on social media after proposed system-wide staffing changes were announced to staff in December.
Social media fanned the flames, and the heat was felt most intensely by PCLS Executive Director Gretchen Caserotti, who said she could hardly keep up with the speed and spread of rumors.
“We understand change can raise questions and concerns, and want to address some misinformation circulating about our internal reorganization plan for the Customer Experience department,” she said in an email to KP News.
“First, our priority is and always will be to provide high-quality, equitable services to the public. The reorganization does not eliminate youth services or the programs families rely on. Children’s programming and early literacy remain core to our mission,” Caserotti said.
“Second: to better balance workloads and ensure flexibility while maintaining strong local connections, staff will be scheduled within regions, not countywide."
The Key Center branch is grouped with the larger Gig Harbor branch and the smaller Steilacoom branch in the PCLS system to form its own “region,” like other three-branch regions within the 19-branch library system.
Caserotti said many staff are already scheduled to work at multiple locations within their region. “The goal is to embed library services more deeply in communities, not to disrupt them.”
That’s not what it looked or felt like to some patrons of the Key Center Library who learned that staff within each small region would be required to commute at least one day a week to other branches, including the 28-mile, 50-minute average one-way travel between Key Center and Steilacoom.
When Madeleine Spencer, a small farmer and mother who lives in Longbranch, heard that Customer Experience Specialist Barbie Grayson’s position was being eliminated in the district-wide staffing reorganization, she started writing letters with other patrons.
Over 70 letters of opposition to staffing changes were received by the library board of trustees before its Dec. 10 meeting. KP patrons also made the trek to Tacoma to attend the meeting in person.
“I cannot fully articulate how much of a loss this would be to our community,” Spencer wrote in an email to Pierce County Council Member Robyn Denson’s office and Connie Behe, the deputy director of PCLS. “Miss Barbie provides phenomenal service to the children and parents on the KP.”
Spencer described the patron reactions she witnessed as news of staffing changes left many people in tears. Miss Barbie is Spencer’s daughter’s favorite adult outside their family.
“Miss Barbie’s welcoming greeting, ‘Hi friend!’ every time my daughter walks in the library door, is a treasured part of our week.”
Spencer’s now 3-year-old daughter loves her librarian. The story time program offered at the Key Center Library was one of the very first activities they participated in and one of the only toddler-centered activities accessible in the area. As a new parent living rurally, story time offered the young family a lifeline to the community and other parents.
“A rotating staff at our rural branch will not be able to adequately address the unique set of circumstances our community has in the same way that local librarians do now,” Spencer said. “Our sometimes isolated elders utilize the library as a social outlet and have trusted relationships with the staff. New faces every time you walk in the door would be an unwelcome disruption to this system and a true rupture in the fabric of our small community.”
Spencer also expressed concern for library staff who live on the Key Peninsula, whose lives would be disrupted by traveling so far to work in an unfamiliar branch. “(It) makes no sense if the purpose is to improve the customer engagement and satisfaction, which patrons already ranked as being very high in recent PCLS surveys.”
PCLS declined to comment on the specifics of staffing reorganization during negotiations with the union that represents most staff outside of administration. Staff were told not to discuss the matter with the public.
PCLS hired Starling Whitehead & Lux Architects in 2023 to perform building condition assessments and gave that information to Gensler & Associates architects to begin development of a comprehensive capital plan.
That work includes a 700-page document detailing individual building needs that remains under executive staff review and has yet to be presented to the PCLS board or to the public. Nonetheless, Caserotti said public engagement regarding library facilities will be a big topic for review and discussion in 2026. She has been trimming the budget where she could ever since she came into the position three years ago, and said she is grateful that patrons haven’t reported negative impacts as a result.
“The libraries’ financial realities remain an important element to this conversation that’s getting lost as if (staffing) changes were without any reason,” she said. “The reality is that with a 1% property tax cap, we can’t afford our operations if we don’t make changes. What we’re trying to do here is avoid layoffs, closing branches on days of the week, or reducing services. We have to be strategic as an organization.”
Currently, 65% to 70% of the PCLS $50 million annual operating budget goes to staffing.
“The administration’s goal is not to displace employees,” Caserotti said. “We could not do our work and fulfill our mission without the staff who are essential to this — but we can’t keep doing business as usual.”
One local staff member who spoke to KP News on condition of anonymity said, “I wish I could tell you all the ways the impending changes will impact our staff here at Key Center and across the system, but we’ve been told not to speak about that with the public. To be candid, very little has been communicated to branch staff. It feels like our lives are about to be upended, and I’m still waiting for a thoughtful or logical explanation why.”
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