By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Instability in the revenue flowing into the state’s coffers is having an effect on the amount of money going to local libraries.
At this week’s meeting of the Wood County District Public Library Board of Trustees, Library Director Michael Penrod said that state revenues were down by $4 million in October from October 2023. The state’s Office of Budget and Management is estimating the state will take in $1 billion less in General Revenue Funds for the coming fiscal year than was anticipated when the biennial budget was approved a year ago.
The state library fund is receives 1.7 percent of those state revenues. So far this year, that has generated $395,211,372, $28.8 million less than last year.
For the WCDPL, the average monthly distribution from the Public Library Fund has been $146,111, that’s almost $15,000 less a month than last year.
The actual monthly amounts, Penrod noted, ebb and flow with the economy with the largest amounts coming in April as people pay their income taxes.
The fund, he said, had stabilized in the last few years after the cuts caused by the Great Recession.
Penrod said he’s been concerned the payments in the last couple years may be a revenue “bubble.” Now he hopes that bubble does not pop, but rather is slowly deflating.
The library brought in $2 million from the fund in 2023.
The finance committee, he said, will have to look at the situation as to how much to expect in next year’s budget. Penrod said the amount coming in is not the problem. “I just want stability.”
The library also brings in $1 million from a six-year, 0.8 mill tax levy, which was last approved by voters in November, 2020. And the library depends on fundraising, particularly its annual auction. Novel Night, which generated more than $120,000 last summer. As well as local legacies left to the library. That money goes toward buying materials. The library devotes 14 percent, that’s 2.5 percent more than the national average.
Trustees President Ken Frisch noted that the library has spent down some of its reserves doing maintenance on the building.
Penrod also reported on the construction of a carriage house style garage and storage facility next to the Carter House on South Church Street. The plan presented by Penrod to the full board varies somewhat than what was discussed by the Building Committee earlier this month.
[RELATED: Library to build ‘carriage house’ to address maintenance & storage needs]
What he presented was a two-story main building, with each floor 2,304 square feet with the bottom floor serving as a maintenance area and the top floor for book storage.
The latest design also includes two smaller attached one story buildings, that will serve as a garage for library vehicles and for flammable substances, and those that release fumes. This would keep them away from the book storage.
(The bookmobile will remain in its bay in the main library because it needs to be loaded and unloaded with books.)
Because the structure will be used to store books it will require heating and air conditioning.
The structure will use a simplified Italianate Victorian style to complement the architecture of the Carter House.
Penrod is still putting together the request for proposals to be sent to architects.
The carriage house structure is being built to alleviate space problems in the main library building.
