The Sundre Municipal Library’s budget is back in the black following a couple of years of financial uncertainty and deficits that forced the board of directors to draw from reserves.
Council heard the news from Jamie Syer, the library’s manager, who presented an update during the Oct. 1 meeting.
“I’m very pleased to be here to present the library’s balanced budget projections for the next four years.”
Speaking on behalf of the library’s board, which in September approved the financial forecast, Syer outlined several highlights from revenue and expense projections for 2019-2022.
“Our budget for 2018 will also be balanced, or very close to it, which is a considerable change from the figures that I showed you about six months ago,” he said.
According to the document presented to council, total revenues for 2019 are expected to be almost $231,000 with expenses adding up to less than $230,000.
Making possible the return to a balanced budget was the recently renegotiated culture and recreation funding agreement between the Town of Sundre and Mountain View County, he said, expressing gratitude on behalf of the trustees as well as library patrons for council’s effort in working with their counterparts to come to an agreement, which represents a 40 per cent increase in funding.
“In terms of our budget, that’s about $17,000. So assuming that all of our other funding sources remain approximately equal over the next few years, the library — I can assure you — is on a very strong financial footing.”
Syer provided a brief summary of the financials approved by the board.
“Library funding comes from several sources. The largest source is the municipality which founded the library, which is the Town of Sundre. Second place is Mountain View County. We receive significant funding from the Government of Alberta; that’s broken down into several grants, one of which we receive because of our membership in Parkland Regional Library.”
Additionally, although not reflected in the budget, the town and county also contribute directly to the regional system to support the Sundre library’s membership with that organization, he said.
“The benefits that accrue to us for being a member of Parkland are inestimable. Everything from provincewide resource sharing to help with all of our IT and computers, all of those expenses are paid for by Parkland, to expert consulting help. It really changes us from being a library in a town of a little under 3,000 to being a library in a community of several million.”
The largest expenses for the library are wages and benefits, he said, praising an outstanding staff.
“It was due to an increase in this category that we got into the situation of looking at deficit budgets over the last few years.”
With the sole exception of the manager, all of the library’s staff are unionized. About four years ago, the library found itself needing to catch up on compensations, which resulted in having to draw from reserves. The next Canadian Union of Public Employees negotiations are expected to occur in 2020, he said, adding wage figures beyond that time frame are estimated.
The next biggest expense for the library is the cost of renting the space at the Sundre Community Centre from the municipality, he said.
“I’ve been told by town staff that there’s no projected increase — I realize these are estimates — to that amount for 2019, and a 2.5 per cent increase for each of the next three years,” he said, adding the budget reflects those figures.
Additional expenses include the acquisition of material to circulate at the library as well as programs and professional accounting and legal fees, which has a dedicated and restricted reserve, he said.
“You’ll see that beginning in 2019, we are indeed in the black.”
The board, he added, is not requesting any increase in funding for 2019.
“The board is asking that you consider an increase of 1.5 per cent in each of 2020, 2021 and 2022. That reflects the numbers that I mentioned a few moments ago, which we don’t have a lot of control over — mainly our unionized wages and the amount that we pay as lease for our space in the community centre.”
The manager also offered some information in the form of a digital slideshow presentation outlining what the library has been up to in recent years.
Over the past roughly five years, the number of cardholders, program participants as well as in-person visits have increased substantially, he said.
Additionally, programs ranging from Cyber Seniors to the Sundre Seed Library as well as the Sundre Forest Products Summer Reading Club and English as a second language courses remain popular, he said.
In recent weeks, staff asked patrons to complete the following sentence, “If it weren’t for the library…” to gain more insight on why people consider the library to be an important part of the their lives, he said, adding dozens of replies were submitted.
Among the many responses were the following: “Where would I get my books?”, “There would be no safe place for my kids to go after school”, “I wouldn’t have access to computers”, “I wouldn’t have two daughters graduating in library science”, “I wouldn’t have made so many new friends”, “I wouldn’t have a place to study or do my homework”, “I would be a lost soul”, and “my winter days would be long.”
Looking to the future, whatever new initiatives are introduced will be based on the library’s plan of service, which the board approved about a year and a half ago following a number of community consultation events, he said.
“People are always at the heart of what we do. The addition of technology, programs, other materials, will never change what really matters about the library. It will always be the residents of our town and our county that determine how well we’re doing,” he concluded, opening the floor for questions.
Coun. Paul Isaac said Syer never ceases to surprise and impress, and that although the councillor does not frequent the library, what has been happening there under the manager’s leadership has been amazing. Isaac said he appreciates the dreams that the library’s manager has helped foster and grow.
“It really is a team effort; we got a great group,” Syer said.
Coun. Rob Wolfe’s motion to accept Syer’s report for information carried.
Mayor Terry Leslie said that while he appreciated the manager’s acknowledgement of the town’s support in securing increased funding, he also added that the county council played an important role in making that possible.
“It was a collaborative effort,” the mayor said.
