Library Cuts for 04-05
June 04

The Independence Public Library has made the budget decisions necessary to reduce our budget to $144,762.  My article last month, “Current Issues,” discussed cuts that would be made in our periodicals (magazines and newspapers) line item.  If you missed the article, you can still access the list of periodicals to be cut by going to our website www.indylibrary.org, linking to Library Connections, and linking to the May article.  Additional cuts will affect the open library hours and staffing.  There is a possibility that more funding will be allocated to the library, as the city council asked library representatives and supporters to return after the start of the fiscal year to request additional funding.

To help explain why staffing and cuts in open hours are necessary, we can compare the Independence Public Library Budget to library budgets in other towns our size.  Using the latest available statistics (2002-2003), our library works with a budget more than $71,000 below the average for towns in Iowa of 5000 to 7000 people.  The average 02-03 budget was $241,735.84 and our budget was $170,107.00.          

With the current line items (03-04 budget) for materials and computers being extremely low, the dollar amounts for books, videos, and audiobooks have been increased in the 04-05 budget.  Following are several different ways to look at the budget amount. 

1. Using these higher dollar amounts, we will replace 2.3% of our materials through the course of one year.  The state standard is to replace a minimum of 3% of the collection per year.  We are short 230 items, or $5520 of meeting the state standard. 
2. We can compare our materials budget to our materials budget in previous years.  The increased amount for 04-05 is $21,200, which is $2222 less than the materials budget for our library in 00-01. 
3. These are the items that we will be able to purchase next year with our small increase in the materials budget:

·        1 book for every 7 cardholders (children, adults, large print, reference)

·        1 video for every 67 cardholders

·        1 audiobook for every 118 cardholders

·        1 periodical for every 88 cardholders

Our computer line item was increased from $2500 to total $3000.  We will be able to purchase one computer during the year and pay for necessary maintenance and software upgrades of the other 11 computers with this amount.  At this rate it will take 12 years to replace all of our computers, not counting our 2 servers. 

The major changes that will begin on July 1st are reductions in staffing, hours open to the public, and periodicals.  We will be cutting 19 staff hours and 7 open hours.  The cuts will be Wednesday evenings, Friday hours, and Saturday hours.  Following are our new hours beginning July 1^st:

·         Mon.-Tues.            10 am – 8 pm

·         Wednesday            10 am – 5 pm

·         Thursday            10 am – 8 pm

·         Fri.-Sat.            11 am – 3 pm

The Independence Public Library Board and Staff are hopeful that the city council will approve an increase in the amount allocated to the library.  If the amount of $152,385 is approved, which is an increase of $7623, the periodicals budget will still be cut, but we will be able to reinstate the current hours and staffing.