This is budget season in the world of municipal finance. It is never comfortable even during times when the money is flowing. Flowing is a very relative term believe me but 2% increases sure look good about now.
Yesterday, the Library had a conversation with the Finance Committee of the City of Portland. It was civil and, to the extent possible during difficult times, supportive of what we do. It strikes me that there are a lot of good people in the world trying to do good things while doing their duty. It may not be possible to do both right now. You can't control the external factors but you can control your attitude and level of civility. I was grateful for the presence of those qualities last night in speaking with people with a hard job to do.
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PPL Executive Director Comments RE FY 10 Budget
City Council Finance Committee
Thursday, March 26, 2009 – 4:00 PM
Chairman Mavodones, members of the Finance Committee and City Manager Gray. Before beginning, I’d like to acknowledge my colleagues from the Library who are with me today: Morris Fisher, President of the Board of Trustees, Nathan Smith, First Vice President, Shelley Carvel, Treasurer, Clare Hannan, Director of Finance & Operations and Heather Tiffany, Director of Development and Programming for the Library.
For the second consecutive year, we, collectively as a City, find ourselves in extremely difficult fiscal conditions that merit the most thoughtful consideration, response and understanding and maybe most importantly, collective good will.
We recognize – and in fact have experienced both this year and last - the severe distress that this Committee and the Manager face through this process. There is much at risk: people’s livelihoods, our City’s quality of life, how we will nurture economic development; the list is endless. For our business this afternoon, Portland Public Library is part of the question of whether certain City services will continue to exist, and if so, how to address the challenges to effectively delivering those services to the greatest number given that every agency or department –including the Library - has been terribly compromised.
The budget proposal that you have before you has a very simple goal which is to maintain our current schedule of hours and by extension our existing level of personnel. This budget incorporates the drastic cuts made last year in the Library system in the form of a 10% reduction in system staff which played out in an 18% loss in hours at the Main Library – our busiest location. I don’t think I need to repeat or parrot the endless media coverage that we all have been subjected to concerning the demand and importance of public libraries at this moment. However the demand is very real and it makes last year’s cuts and any potential cuts next FY very painful to real people trying to hold their lives together.
This year’s budget contains some startling expressions that reflect the broad economic turmoil including a reduction in the collections budget of $117,000 due to the falling value of our endowment. Clearly we have our own “revenue problem”. Further, losing one full day per week at our busiest and largest location has affected our ability to rent rooms and lessened our overdue fees due to falling lending numbers. For this next FY, the situation is further exacerbated due to the renovation of Monument Sq which has compromised some of our earning possibilities by limiting room rentals.
The collections and programs of the Library are paid for primarily by Library funds including fees, fundraising, endowment earnings and grant support. In the past three years alone the Library has brought in approximately $3,000,000 to support Portland Public Library activity. Of that amount close to $1,500,000 has gone directly to support the operations of the Library while the remainder $1,500,000 is helping to renovate the main library. The funding from the City is of course vital in that it supports the staff salaries, electricity, heating, etc. – our infrastructure as it were.
We continue to raise funds for operations, have finished a case statement for endowment growth and are devoting more time to grant writing. An additional bright spot is the formal creation of the Friends of PPL which is now getting off the ground and from which we expect financial and program support once it is firmly established.
While we appreciate and understand the stress and challenge of your work, it is our duty to communicate clearly the impact of a flat funding scenario for the second straight year. Last year we worked with a set of budget principles that we communicated to the Council and posted on our website for public review. We have to some degree used those principles again but have also incorporated the “Observations” gleaned from the neighborhood meetings. Those observations, along with all materials from our 6 fall meetings, have been posted on our website for the past 6 months. We also shared at those meetings new “budget statements” that were intended to leave no doubt as to what we heard last spring and what our preliminary consensus was in the approach to the FY 10 budget. (Copies of these documents are part of your packet and will be reposted on our website as part of our budget packet)
It is worth noting that over the past three years we have hosted or participated in over 30 neighborhood meetings –including the Fall 08 series - discussing all kinds of library issues. The feedback from these many meetings, as well as two major citizen surveys, have informed our on-going planning and thinking around this year’s budget.
At our Fall meetings we promised publicly to submit a budget to cover costs to maintain all of our current operating hours and locations;
We stated that, if the necessary funds were not forthcoming, reductions would have to come from neighborhood locations.
The attendees at the meetings understood these two features clearly and asked that we keep them informed along the way of our budget submissions. We have done that to this point except for the details of this evening, out of courtesy to this Committee. The community also stated clearly that they favored a “share the pain” approach if funds were not available to maintain the system at FY 09 levels.
With that context in mind, an appropriation equal to last year’s will lead to the following steps:
All locations – except the Main Library will be reduced by 10 hours per week.Peaks Island, Reiche and Riverton will be open 10 hours per week beginning this July 1.
Burbank will be open 30 hours per week.
East End Community School (or PPL Children’s Library) will be open 30 hours and then be reduced to 10 hours by the end of FY 10 after the Youth Services staff returns to the renovated Monument Sq facility.
With the loss of 50 hours per week and 2.5 FTEs for the next Fiscal Year, we will have compared to two years ago 15% less staff and a reduction of system hours of 23%.
In closing, we all have to make very tough choices. Portland Public Library has, indisputably, demonstrated a record of engagement with our users, planning, openness and a willingness to thoughtfully consider the options to deliver the best library service possible. As you all are painfully aware, we are in the second year of a continuum of fiscal uncertainty – and there may be more ahead - and we need to reorient ourselves to a new reality and force ourselves to transcend narrow agendas. It is clear that the Portland Public Library system is not the same institution of two years ago in terms of financial capability and no amount of wishing or posturing can alter that fact. There is a way forward – no doubt the road will look different - and we invite the Council to participate in a constructive, energetic and objective exchange with us as we continue to grapple with the challenges ahead
