The Sundre Municipal Library ended the 2015 financial year in the black, council recently heard.
“The bottom line shows that last year we had excessive revenue over expenses of just under $14,000,” said Jamie Syer, library manager, during a presentation to town officials at the April 18 meeting.
“Now obviously we're not in the business of running a profit, but that was because of our fortunate success in fundraising over the last few months of 2015.”
So the library's board decided to apply the excess funding to programs in 2016, he said.
Breaking down the library's revenue in 2015, he said the budget was “very much on track” except for donations, which came in about 50 per cent above what had been anticipated. Memberships, fees, fines and sales of various kinds were also above budgeted figures.
“Even our government allocations were a little bit above budget because Mountain View County decided to help upgrade our SuperNet at the library to a faster speed,” he said.
But the Town of Sundre continues to be the library's largest single financial supporter, followed by the county as well as numerous government grants, he said.
In light of the nearly $14,000 excess revenue over expenses in 2015, Syer told council the library board trustees “made a very significant decision to eliminate membership fees at the library during 2016.”
Additionally, “the trustees felt strongly that this was something that the library could do to respond to the existing situation and the challenges that many in our community are feeling.”
The move brings the Sundre library among the ranks of others — large and small — throughout the province that have removed membership fees in an effort to “reduce or hopefully eliminate any barrier to taking advantage of all that the library has to offer,” he said.
Towards the end of 2016, the trustees will review the trial free membership to determine whether that will be able to continue for the following year, he said.
“Obviously that has a potential to take that particular slice out of our budget.”
In 2015, membership fees amounted to about $7,000 of the library's roughly $230,000 budget. People who sign up for a new membership or renew an existing one are still offered the option to make a donation if they so choose, he said.
“At this point, we're recovering about 40 to 50 per cent of the fees that we would have otherwise received if we had continued to charge for memberships.”
So the full $7,000 won't be fully replaced, but the library board will have a better idea in the fall where it's at and whether it will be able to continue offering free memberships to the community, he said.
“It was a remarkable decision. I'm very proud of it.”
Mayor Terry Leslie wondered how many other libraries in the province were also offering free memberships.
The largest libraries in Alberta — Calgary and Edmonton — are both free of membership fees. But so are many others. About 25-30 per cent of the 50 libraries in the Parkland Regional Library system, which Sundre is a member of, are now not charging membership fees, he said.
The donations that provided the significant boost to the library's coffers came from three oil and gas companies, “which to me says, at least as of last fall, this industry realizes what libraries have to offer becomes even more important and significant in a time of challenge.”
Collections were down in 2015 because library staff endeavoured to remove books that were old, out of date or not being used. Regardless, circulation was actually up about 10 per cent last year, as well as the number of cardholders. The number of visitors was up four per cent, he said.
“That front door opened 25,000 times in 2015.”
Also, the number of people who came to the library for a specific program or activity almost tripled last year, he said.
“The leader in that, again, was our summer reading club.”
Following the conclusion of Syer's presentation on the library's 2015 finances, administrator Dave Dubauskas praised the library board for doing a self-audit, which it was not required to do.
“But they've gone ahead and said, ‘We're fair, we're open, we're doing good business, please come in and look at our books and see how things are,'” he said.
The library manager modestly said the suggestion had come from administrative staff to do such a report once every three years.
Coun. Chris Vardas gave kudos to Syer for the “great job” he's been doing at the library.
“Since you've taken over, it's run remarkably well,” said Vardas.
“I walked in there the other day with my children and I've never seen that library so full in my life,” he said, adding he's lived here for 25 years.
“I spend more time at the library now than I did when I was a kid!”
Coun. Myron Thompson echoed Vardas's sentiments, and added “behind a good operation is a good leader, and I commend you for your hard work.”
Syer added the library has a “fabulous team,” and continued his presentation outlining some new plans and programs for the year ahead, including a seed library that is running until the end of May and sessions called Let's Talk Science for kids aged 4-6 made possible through a partnership with the University of Calgary.
“I was pleased to get a call from our (Mountain View County) reeve Bruce Beattie asking if we would be interested in being involved in helping provide library services at the new Sundre seniors' care campus,” he added, referring to the Mountain View Seniors' Housing facility scheduled to open this summer.
“We will indeed be involved both with helping create a collection for the residents there and making sure that we're offering all of the services that we possibly can.”
In the long-term, Syer said his vision is to eventually have a coordinator of seniors' library services in Sundre.
“We'll take that one step at a time.”
He then put forward a request to council, asking for approval to withdraw about $2,100 from a reserve to cover the cost of the audit report, which had not been budgeted for. The reserve in question is used for negotiations with CUPE every three years, which last ended up costing about $4,000 in the fall of 2014, and the board has transferred funds regularly into that account in the past, which stands at more than $21,000, he said.
“In the view of the trustees, that reserve is in a good situation to cover those legal expenses for some years to come.”
The request on behalf of the trustees was twofold — to approve the withdrawal of funds to complete the review engagement report and to rename the account as “the legal and financial reserve fund” so it can be used for both purposes — audits and CUPE negotiations — which are going to come up about once every three years, he said.
Dubauskas said administration would look into the request and bring a recommendation back to council at a later meeting.
“We'll certainly consider that; it's not such an unreasonable request,” said Leslie.
“We're very proud supporters of the Sundre library; you make us proud. You foster literacy, numeracy, artistic, scientific, digital — for all the ages and life stages — proven by the fact you want to get into the new seniors' facility and the doors aren't even open yet.”
Council went on to carry a motion to accept the library manager's information as presented.
