Dolly Parton’s reading initiative hits a snag in California

from Adam EchelmanCalMatters

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A nonprofit organization created by the California State Library to improve children’s literacy has spent more than $1 million in taxpayer money but has yet to put a single book in the hands of a child.

Lawmakers have challenged state librarian Greg Lucas and other officials over the organization’s spending contested three-hour hearing on April 7with one MP saying it raises “serious questions”.

However, Lucas blamed the shortcomings on the fact that lawmakers themselves prematurely stopped funding the organization. After the hearing, he told CalMatters in a statement that “every taxpayer dollar spent on this program is fully accounted for.”

In total, lawmakers set aside $70 million in 2022 to improve children’s love of reading, with the intention of giving some of the money to the Dolly Parton Imagination Library and some to a local organization.

The California-based Strong Reader Partnership was formed by the state library as a local partner and was initially slated to receive $19 million. But in 2024, with very little money to spend, lawmakers redirected the money to the Dollywood Foundation, which runs Parton’s Imagination Library. In the end, the project was able to achieve many of its goals, the Dollywood Foundation told lawmakers this year. Overall, it has served more than 160,000 children in California and distributed nearly 3 million books. The foundation administers the program but does not donate money to the project.

Although the $1 million spent by the Strong Reader Partnership is small compared to the project’s total budget, Sen. Sasha Rene PerezPasadena Democrat and Senator. Shannon GroveRepublican from Bakersfield, said during the hearing that it’s their job to make sure it’s still being spent properly, especially since the money is intended for children.

During the hearing, Perez and Grove questioned Strong Reader Partnership’s finances, repeatedly saying its accounting practices and business activities were inefficient, negligent or potentially in violation of the government contract. Grove pressed Lucas on why he had created a separate nonprofit organization instead of giving the money directly to the Dollywood Foundation, even though the state library itself demanded that it do so.

In 2022, Grove is an author the law who created the program. The bill requires “the state librarian to coordinate with a non-profit organization, as specified, which is organized solely to promote and encourage reading by the children of the state.” The Dollywood Foundation, which is national and based in Tennessee, did not qualify for this nonprofit entity.

When CalMatters asked Grove why she criticized the creation of a state library nonprofit when her bill requires it, she responded by email but did not answer the question. Instead, she repeated her criticism of the Strong Reader Partnership, saying its money was “wasted without putting books in children’s hands”.

Letters to Legislators

State lawmakers first questioned the Imagination Library project in 2024, when budget officials faced with closing a nearly $50 billion deficiency statestold lawmakers that most of the money for the program remained unspent nearly two years after it was launched. This year, the governor signed an account keeping the money intact but requiring 90% of it to go directly to the Dollywood Foundation instead of the Strong Reader Partnership or any local non-profit. The foundation did not respond to CalMatters’ questions about its relationship with the Strong Reader Partnership.

Sonia Harris, executive director of the Strong Reader Partnership at the time, opposed that 2024 bill and said she has sent letters to lawmakers who oppose it.

Lawmakers said talking about the bill was a violation of her contract. “You are trying to influence legislation when it specifically states that you must not use state taxpayer dollars to do this. Do you agree?” Perez asked during the April 7 hearing. Harris did not answer the question.

Also during the hearing, Perez repeatedly questioned the organization’s financial management, citing instances where checks bounced, reports were not completed or documents arrived months after lawmakers requested them. “As far as I can see here, there haven’t been any local partnerships that you all have created to facilitate this program over a two-year period,” she said. “We can’t find out what you did with those dollars, and that’s the whole purpose of this hearing.”

Contracting with non-profit organizations involves risks

The roughly $1 million in state funds that went to the Strong Reader Partnership is less than one-thousandth of 1 percent of the state’s total spending, but that’s not the point, Perez said.

“Comments have been made about the amount of money that this is and that it may be short of the budget,” she said before closing the hearing. “But for me, as a public servant, I take this very seriously. We need to ensure that when we make a commitment to provide something as simple as books to children, that we actually deliver on that commitment.”

State and local lawmakers regularly sign contracts and grant money to businesses, including many nonprofits, to implement public services or programs. In the process, taxpayers “lose transparency,” said Susan Shelley, vice president of communications for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a group that opposes higher taxes. “Why is the state or local government turning them over to nonprofits instead of having their huge bureaucracy handle these things where someone is responsible?”

Shelley said the onus is on both the nonprofits and the Legislature, especially in this case because Grove’s bill requires the California State Library to work with a local nonprofit.

Normally, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association is strongly associated with Grove. Last year, the organization gave her A+ based on her voting record on tax-related issues.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.