Reading into budget cuts

J.P. Squire 2009-08-25 Kelowna daily Courier:

With two-thirds of their budget year already gone, public libraries across the province still don‘t know how much they will receive in provincial grants, just that it will be less. Ironically, the economic woes which are causing funding cuts are also attracting more patrons, many of them who can‘t afford to buy books and other resources anymore. According to a B.C. Government and Service Employees‘ Union news release, Education Minister Margaret McDiamid quietly revealed a 22 per cent – or $4-million – cut in the libraries‘ $17.6-million 2008-09 budget last Thursday. A Ministry of Education spokesman said that the $9.7 million in per-capita operating grants will be maintained. So will funding of six library federations, provincial library associations, Literacy Equity and One Card programs. But targeted grants will be reduced or eliminated. The province‘s contribution to overall library funding will decline to seven per cent of libraries‘ total revenue from nine per cent, he said, but funding has increased by 60 per cent from the $8.5 million in 2001-02 when the Liberals came to power. “The ministry is committed to working closely with the B.C. Library Trustees‘ Association to ensure that rural libraries, especially those with small population bases, are supported,” said the spokesman.

The Okanagan Regional Library has still heard nothing but “gossip,” said executive director Lesley Dieno. “We saw that news and we were a little worried, (but) we don‘t know that the whole amount (22 per cent) is going to be cut from the grants,” Dieno said. “We‘re thinking probably not because we think some of the reduction will be at the provincial level,” Dieno said. The ORL receives $1.2 million from the province: a $1-million operating grant, plus a series of small targeted grants to bring in guest authors, for example. The grants represent eight per cent of ORL revenue. “When these recessions hit, we just get busier and busier. It‘s weird. People show up that you haven‘t seen for five years: ’Oh, I‘m back. I can‘t afford to buy books any more‘ or “I gave up my computer‘ or ’My computer broke down and I didn‘t have enough money to fix it so here I am again,”‘ she said.

The ORL‘s finance committee is scheduled to meet at the headquarters “to go through everything” either at the end of the week or early next week in advance of the board meeting on Sept. 16. “But we won‘t be able to make any final decisions about things, of course, until the board meeting. And even then, if we don‘t know the actual cuts and where they are until the end of September, we won‘t have a final idea of the budget at all in September and we‘re going to have to wait until the November meeting (Nov. 18).”Dieno thinks there will some cuts to targeted grants, but the board doesn‘t budget for some grants that it has applied for until they are approved. “I think they are trying their darnedest not to cut the big stuff because it is so integrated into library budgets,” she said. “If some of the smaller libraries in the province lose that operating grant, then they can‘t operate at all. I think we‘re not going to have as hard a time with this as some of the small libraries in the small communities that aren‘t part of a big system,” she added. “I‘m not saying it‘s going to be easy, but we can all support each other. We‘re big enough that we can do that. If you‘re in a system, it sure makes things a lot easier.” The fiscal year for public libraries is Jan. 1-Dec. 31 unlike the province which operates April 1-March 31. Funding announcements for the current year have come as early as June, but occasionally not until September. The ORL has about 240 employees and operates 29 branches from Revelstoke to Osoyoos.