Hamilton’s Public Library Board’s proposed operating budget for 2016 is a 1% increase over the 2015 budget – while sustaining a significant increase in activities, programs, and usage of the library system.
The Board passed the budget proposal on Wednesday; it will be presented to Council on either January 26 or 27.
The proposed 2016 operating budget is $30,559,780, up $236,100 from 2015. This is only an increase of 0.8%, but the increase on the tax levy is $295,270 – mostly due to an expected $78,400 decrease in fine revenue as more materials are available digitally such as e-books.
Staff cost pressures include a 2% cost-of-living increase for salaried staff, and the minimum wage increase for hourly staff such as book-shelvers. These pressures are partially offset on the ledger by a reduction of 2.39 FTEs.
The library is increasing its security budget by $35,000 as they add more events such as Art Crawls, concerts, and markets.
(Disclosure: The Library hosted the joint CANADALAND and The Public Record talk on the Hamilton local journalism landscape, absorbing staffing costs to host the event)
Noteworthy as part of the cord-cutting trend, but not as part of the budget, the Library no longer subscribes to cable television. They were only spending $780 per year on their subscription.
The library is expecting to make $3,000 in revenue from selling supplies in its new makerspaces – the library’s goal is to be at cost recovery in the makerspaces.
Hamilton Library Proposes 1% Operating Budget Increase as per Council Request
