Monday, March 16, 2026

Pasadena’s State Senator Presses State’s Top Librarian Over $649,000 Gap in Dolly Parton Book Program

California State Senator Sasha Renée Pérez at the “No Kings” 2 demonstration in Pasadena on Saturday, October 18, 2025. [Paul Takizawa/Pasadena Now]

Senate hearing reveals nonprofit created to administer children’s literacy funds submitted one report instead of four and cannot document its spending

State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, whose district includes Pasadena, demanded answers Thursday from California’s top librarian after lawmakers discovered that roughly $649,000 spent by a nonprofit tied to the Dolly Parton Imagination Library cannot be supported by receipts or bank records.

Pérez, who chairs the Senate Budget Subcommittee No. 1 on Education, pressed State Librarian Greg Lucas at a March 12 hearing in Sacramento over a gap between the nonprofit’s claimed spending and its documented expenditures. The nonprofit, called the Strong Reader Partnership, reported spending approximately $1.2 million in state funds, but bank statements provided to Senate budget staff showed only about $555,000 in expenditures — a discrepancy of $649,351, according to the subcommittee’s agenda packet.

“I find this to be incredibly concerning,” Pérez said during the hearing, according to Fox News Digital. “There’s $650,000 that’s been unaccounted for in a program, a bipartisan effort that was intended to increase literacy among children. This is incredibly serious.”

The funds are part of a $68.2 million state investment created by Senate Bill 1183, a bipartisan measure signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022. The law established a statewide version of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which mails free, age-appropriate books each month to children from birth to age 5. The bill was co-authored by Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) and then-Senate President pro Tempore Toni Atkins (D-San Diego).

Rather than working exclusively through the Dollywood Foundation, which operates the national program, the California State Library helped create the Strong Reader Partnership — a separate nonprofit whose articles of incorporation were filed in April 2023, with the Deputy State Librarian listed as agent for service of process, according to the subcommittee document. The State Library executed a $19.2 million contract with the nonprofit in August 2024.

Senate budget staff requested receipts, invoices, and bank statements from the State Library on six occasions between November and February 2026, according to the subcommittee agenda. The documents were not provided.

The subcommittee document also noted that the Strong Reader Partnership’s executive director serves as the principal of one of the nonprofit’s vendors, a Sacramento-based consulting firm that received at least four checks totaling $208,652.75 as of August.

Lucas disputed the characterization that funds are unaccounted for.

“I don’t believe that’s correct,” Lucas said during the hearing, according to Fox News Digital. He said the State Library had received a final report from the Strong Reader Partnership but that the nonprofit had expressed “the difficulty in obtaining some of this information because they no longer have any money or members of the partnership since the money was transferred to the Imagination Library.”

In a written statement provided to ABC10, a State Library spokesperson said the library “takes seriously its responsibility to ensure transparency and accountability” and “has provided the Legislature with all documentation in its possession and has repeatedly requested additional records from the Strong Reader partnership.”

Grove, who co-authored the original legislation to create the program, was sharply critical.

“That makes no sense,” Grove said during the hearing, according to Fox News Digital. “And that reeks of horrific no transparency and potential fraud.”

The subcommittee document contrasted the two entities’ track records. The Dollywood Foundation, which received approximately $25 million from the State Library in February, distributed 683,636 books and enrolled 52,034 new children in the program between July and December, according to the agenda packet. The Imagination Library expanded into seven new counties during that period.

The Strong Reader Partnership, by comparison, provided a single $5,000 grant to one local partner in Yolo County, the document stated. The State Library could not tell the committee how many children were enrolled or books distributed through that grant.

The program was created in 2022 with strong bipartisan support. SB 1183 opened eligibility to approximately 2.4 million California children across all 58 counties. California was the 15th state to establish a statewide Imagination Library program. Dolly Parton launched the original book-gifting initiative in her home county in Tennessee in 1995.

Two years after the $68.2 million was appropriated, the Imagination Library of California Fund had not been established in the State Treasury, according to the subcommittee document. The Legislature intervened in 2024 and again in 2025 to redirect funds from the Strong Reader Partnership to the Dollywood Foundation.

Pérez gave Lucas seven days to produce invoices and receipts documenting how the money was spent, according to Fox News Digital. No formal audit or criminal investigation related to the Strong Reader Partnership has been publicly announced.

“We will request them again and get the documents,” Lucas said, according to ABC10. “I don’t know what to tell you other than we continue to do what you ask us to do.”