Library advocates and employees across the state let out a collective sigh of relief at midnight Tuesday after Florida legislators restored library funding to its current level of $21.2 million.

The roller coaster ride began in early March when the legislature cut all state funding for public libraries, a move that has become a regular occurrence in recent years.

A budget conference committee cut library state budgets at the end of the 2009-10 legislative session to zero but restored it at the last minute after thousands of emails and phone calls from concerned citizens reached legislators and the governor. This year, the committee cut all state funding to zero early in the legislative session.

Since March, it’s been an uphill battle to restore the funding, with the Senate and House budget chairs agreeing to fund only $11.7 million just days before the budget was due. Just like last year, legislators agreed at the last minute to restore funding to current levels – the minimum needed to secure federal matching funds.

“At midnight the House accepted a Senate offer to restore state aid to public libraries to the current year level of $21.2 million,” said the Tampa Bay Library Consortium’s Charlie Parker, who prepared and distributed emails across the state on the matter.

Parker said thanks to those who made their voices heard and helped prevent the drastic cuts. He said “over 60,000” messages were sent to state officials within the last month.

“Senator (Charlie) Dean and Representative (Debbie) Boyd received an incredible number of contacts – both well over 500,” he said. “And I know (Suwannee County Director of Libraries Danny Hales) was promoting … aggressively. Suwannee can’t claim all of these numbers, but I am confident that a lot of them came from your community.”

Hales said earlier that severe budget cuts such as those proposed “would be absolutely catastrophic” for local libraries. He said Branford could have faced possible closure with “significantly reduced hours” in Live Oak as well as a “significant number” of employees losing their jobs.

Suwannee County receives about half its funding from state aid. Last year the county received $515,267 in state aid and will receive about $554,555 this year.