Park Ridge library’s budget contains less for materials, more for repairs

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Updated: February 27, 2012 8:15AM

The Park Ridge Public Library Board of Trustees on Jan. 17 approved a tentative budget for the 2012-13 fiscal year.

The budget, which must still be reviewed by the Park Ridge City Council, shows spending will remain flat in most areas, including materials, services and administration. It’s capital budget, though, will increase due to new projects.

“There are not very many changes to our budget this year,” said Library Executive Director Janet Van De Carr, explaining that the direction from the city’s Finance Department was to maintain expenses at the previous year’s levels.

Money spent on books, audiovisual items, video games and other materials will not change.

“This is going to be an area where we’re just going to maintain what we have and continue purchasing at the same level,” Van De Carr said. “As the price of things goes up and our budget for new materials doesn’t, we can buy a little less each year.”

The proposed spending plan includes $99,000 budgeted for children’s books, $55,500 for adult books and $8,500 for young-adult books, plus an additional $24,000 under a best-seller-lease program.

The budget for DVD purchases is $48,600 across the adult and children’s departments, while adult CDs and audio books, including Playaways, account for $34,200 of the budget. Video games are budgeted at $3,000.

Some funding in the library’s budget has been shifted from physical materials to the online-resources budget to purchase more online databases for research, Van De Carr said. The library has kept its budget for e-books at $2,700, but plans to use a $10,000 per capita grant from the state to purchase more of the popular digital books, Van De Carr added.

The proposed 2012-13 budget does show additional spending for capital projects compared with the prior year’s spending plan. Planned for 2012-13 are four projects totaling $575,000, including the completion of the library’s roof replacement, which is slated to begin in the spring. A total of $365,000 has been budgeted between the 2011-12 and 2012-13 fiscal years for the roof project.

The library also plans to replace carpeting in the lobby and circulation areas, and throughout the second and third floors at a cost of $160,000. The project has been postponed for several years due to financial constraints, but Van De Carr is hopeful it will be completed during the upcoming fiscal year.

“We’re hoping we won’t have to push it back any more because it’s getting pretty worn in some areas,” she said of the 17-year-old carpeting.

Two additional capital projects include the replacement of lighting fixtures on the second floor at an estimated cost of $125,000 and computerizing controls for the building’s heating system at a cost of about $25,000.

The City Council is expected to discuss all capital projects proposed for 2012-13 on Feb. 22.

The library’s budget is not yet complete because it does not include employee salaries and benefits. The City Council will decide whether nonunion employees, which include all of the library’s workers, receive pay increases during the 2012-13 fiscal year. These employees received a 3-percent pay raise last year.