A.G. Gancarski
The third session of Tuesday morning is for the Library budget, which is perpetually under siege.
9:30: The library representative has offered a narrative story in brochure form. Sam Mousa prefers to talk about the numbers.
9:32: Overdue fines are being deposited into an account for capital improvements. Projected to be over $950K Mousa wants to know how they are accounted for. They will be used, eventually, for a CIP; design or some such.
9:34: Mousa wonders when fines were last reviewed. It was in 2009. Jax was in line with other major public libraries at that point. Customers must now maintain a zero balance of fines to use the library. This means people are paying off more quickly. Another pressure: the reduction of hours libraries are open.
9:37: Health insurance and workers comp have gone up.
9:39: Libraries “arbitrarily” cut in PT and OT by 10%, which has impacted Sunday service. They want restoration of the budget. Mousa wants a “flavor of the entire budget” before that discussion.
9:41: Building maintenance cost has gone down. Historical information was not accurate in previous years.
9:42: A flat budget in many respects.
9:43: On to line items. The PT and OT budgets caused “real challenges.” Today, the money comes from permanent and probationary salaries to make it up. Mousa: “You must have some extra there. People are going to come and go, so you should still have some cushion.”
9:45: Mousa: “I’m not buying the overtime request.”
9:47: A discussion of lapses in departmental budgets.
9:50: Mousa: “Each department has its own lapse calculated?” Weinstein replies that each department is calculated as it’s going. Each area functions differently, has different rates of turnover; the aggregate constitutes the General Fund calculated lapse.
9:52: Mousa: “Some departments can’t handle it on their own.”
9:53: Contractual services line item. “We need ~$43K to be added” because of the cost of the COJ custodial contract. This applies to main library and University Park. (Editorial Comment: Hopefully this money will go to the Main Library bathroom cleanup.)
9:55: Parts of the libraries were never cleaned by custodians, apparently. Good to know.
9:55: Mousa does not seem thrilled with the rigor of this particular budget.
9:56: In FY 13, when 70 people were laid off, this layoff did not include Conference Center staff. Barely in the black with Conference Center. Library wants General Fund to absorb custodial costs for Conference Center to “relieve the pressure” as “if that goes under, we can’t pay salaries and benefits,” and so on.
9:58: The library just bought “wedding chairs” that they can “rent out at a premium.”
9:59: Mousa: “What are you doing differently to generate revenues to make conference center self-sustaining?” The answer: attending wedding conferences to market, allowing rental of the entire space for $5K, and so on. But “new competition” downtown undercuts the library’s functional monopoly in this sector.
10:00: Shari Shuman: “we can’t justify moving more money to the General Fund when you’ve got a balance auxilary.” She wants a separate fund for capital. The Administration, apparently, was not involved in setting up these accounts.
10:03: Discussion continues. Shuman shakes her head. The funds account should go to capital, says Mousa. Not into the conference center account.
10:04: This has been a revelatory meeting, in that one wonders if the library system could be run more efficiently after this.
10:05: Software and other increases are reflected in the budget. Not on current paper.
10:07: “We were advised by the city’s IT department” re: the main server being “end of life” and “additional storage for the digitalization of materials.” The $47K requisition was not approved by the ITECH process, but they are in the current budget request.
10:09: Mousa: “Just because they told you no, doesn’t mean it’s true. We will work something out.”
10:11: A discussion of the requisition continues, as Ashton Hudson has questions.
10:12: This has gotten hard to follow. More crosstalk than you would expect. Also, the meeting is running fifteen minutes over already with no end in sight.
10:14: Mousa: “How are we doing on time? When was this supposed to be over?”
10:15: The library materials budget was $5.3M ten years ago. Now, $2.9M, with an increase in electronic items. State aid projected to be down $400K. “The library’s product has been hugely impacted,” says the library rep. “We need $354K just to stay even with the current year’s budget.” The hold list for in-demand items “has become an increasingly serious issue.”
10:17: Money to replace “broken tables and chairs” is being discussed. “This $354, you’re just trying to stay whole,” says Mousa.
10:18: Mousa: “If you have such a drastic need, why do you have a fund balance?”
10:20: The JPL rep would like to “rebuild” JPL and keep four regional libraries open 64 hours a week. The current budget is built on 40-44 hour weeks.
