Library Board - Regular Meeting

Thank you. ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you.

Bui. Here. Coleman. Here. Johnson. Here. Kim.

Here.

Naker. Yang?

Here.

Chair Jones?

Here. Thank you for the music. That was your walk-on music. And I think we have just about everybody here. Oh, we have everyone here. Wonderful. I want to welcome everyone to the September Library Board meeting. I know we have a few guests here today, which is exciting. We are the governing board for the library, the library has its own levy i don't know if folks know that so we will be primarily discussing the library budget today we do have a couple of action items before us today we're mostly going to hear the mayor's proposed library budget which will be presented to us by director hartman we're not making any any decisions today we're here to listen to the budget which will have important information on us to help us make choices about the budget prior to our maximum levy vote, which is coming up on September 23rd and the final budget in December. I do want to recognize that the primary item that we'll be discussing today in the library budget presentation is going to be the Dayton's Bluff Library. We'll be dedicating a lot of our time to that. There will not be a public hearing today on the Dayton's Bluff Library. We do have a public hearing item on a different action item before that. But there will be a discussion led by Councilmember Johnson on September 24th at 6 p.m. at Metro State at the Ecolab Room 302. So I'd like to welcome folks to come to that. We also do have our public hearing, which is the Truth in Taxation hearing prior to the budget final adoption later this year. And so I just wanted to kind of make sure it's clear kind of what we're going to be discussing here today. And we also do have, in addition to Dayton's Wealth Library, the entire library budget that we want to get through. So I do anticipate we will be going right up to... 2 o'clock, pretty close to that. So if folks need to take a break, go ahead and do that. And I will do my best to keep us moving along so we can get through everything. So thank you again to everyone for being here. And with that, I will turn it actually back over to Kayla.

Item number one, minutes 26-26, approving the minutes of the August 2026 library board meeting.

All right, so we have the library board minutes before us. I will take a motion from Councilmember Coleman to approve. Is there any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed?

Seven in favor, none opposed. The minutes are approved. Item number 2, resolution public hearing 26-243, accepting a gift of 309,000 from the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library and amending the library's 2026 financing and spending plans.

Great. Well, I'm really excited to accept this gift. This is also a public hearing on this item. So if anyone is here to speak on this item, please come up. You have two minutes. And please state your name and where you're coming from if you're here to talk about item number two. Doesn't look like we have anyone. So I will take a motion from Councilmember Kim to close the public hearing and approve this item. All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed? Seven in favor. None opposed.

None opposed.

So the item is adopted.

The item is adopted, sorry.

Oh, of course.

Item number three, staff report 26-176. Our 2027 library board proposal.

Wonderful. So now we are at the presentation of the library budget. I will turn it over to Director Hartman. Thank you for being here.

Thank you, Chair Jost. Thanks, everybody, for being here. My name is Maureen Hartman. I'm the library director in the city of St. Paul. And I'm so grateful. to lead this work in the city and especially grateful to my staff who do such good work and give me permission to lead and to our residents who support libraries and who use them every day. We are not 14 separate libraries. We are one system working together to serve the city of St. Paul. Presenting this budget today is very painful. No library director ever wants to be in a situation where we are talking about closing a library or reducing hours, but the city and therefore the library is in a difficult budget situation. The library cannot continue to deliver the same amount of services with a smaller budget, or frankly, even with a flat budget. Libraries are one of the best things this country invented, and it is both a gift and a huge challenge that across the country, public libraries are overwhelmingly funded by local jurisdictions. cities, and counties. I am passionate about libraries, and I will keep fighting for libraries, just like all of us in this room. And I will fight for two things, that the library can't do more with less, and that in addition to community members supporting libraries, we also want community members to continue to use libraries. So let's get started. So as you heard Councilmember Jost say, it's my task today to present you with the mayor's proposed budget. It is not my task to convince you to close the Dayton's Wealth Library, nor convince you to not close it. It is for me to demonstrate how that is showing up in the mayor's proposed budget, the factors, the budget savings that go into this, and the factors that led to her recommending this in her budget. In the 2027 budget, there is the proposed closure of the Dayton's Bluff Library. Included in that closure amount is the lease with Metropolitan State University. You'll see a number of $148,274 there. The city budgets $131,700. The library would absorb any remainder and any annual increases. In addition, there is technology savings. If the library were closed, we wouldn't spend library money on technology. The same thing is true of library materials costs. And there is also permanent personnel savings. So just to be clear, with this proposed item, no library staff member will lose their employment, but we are losing 1.3 FTE through attrition, which means holding vacancies that we have right now. This budget proposal reduces 1.3 FTE as a permanent reduction and also proposes repurposing 4.1 FTE as positions become vacant through 2027 to permanently fund the remainder of the library safety specialist positions, some of which, as you'll see from my slides later on, only have one-time funding through 2027. Maintaining the Danes Bluff Library will eliminate the plan for the ongoing funding of four of the seven library safety specialists. You'll see in this budget, they are wrapped together. They do not have to be. And that is the work that could be in front of you and the mayor. I want to give you a little bit of an overview of Dean's Bluff. It opened in 2004 as an innovative partnership with Metro State University. As I think most of us know, it is a public library. within a local college. It was an expansion for SPPL at the time from 12 locations to 13. Our holiday closures differ at that location than our other locations due to Metro State holiday and weather closing policies. It is a little over 6,600 square feet. It's a portion of the ground floor of Metro State Library and the Learning Lab building. It has seven library employees. It's the equivalent of 5.4 FTE. It is one of two leased library spaces in St. Paul. Our second is the West Seventh Library. The public library has one small meeting room that has a capacity of 10 people and it has 14 computers. All St. Paul residents can get a community borrowing card from Metro State for non-students. that allows access to check out materials that are metro states, access computers. And members of the public also can print and use photocopying, get reference and research assistance, and use public study tables and seating in the larger metro state library. I just want to clarify that. I want to make sure that you know that during the pandemic, we had a partnership with the Ramsey County Workforce Solutions at our Dayton Slough Library. So we temporarily recommissioned this location as a career lab. This was actually the first space in the state of Minnesota that was doing in-person computer help during the pandemic. We opened in the summer of 2020. We had service level six days of the week through walk-in and appointment-based services. There was a significant investment of county CARES dollars to support the staffing and marketing. This was library staff that were repurposed into these positions. There was an investment of over $500,000, and this was a significant contribution to the city's overall bottom line and helped avoid library layoffs and city layoffs overall. Our library staff at Dayton's Bluff work really, really hard to engage the community and welcome the folks that are coming in. Up until this school year, our mobile library, which is a separate system-wide service, had a regular visit to the Dayton's Bluff Elementary. Dayton's Bluff Elementary has asked us not to return this year, not because they don't like the service, but because they're interested in focusing their services and their resources on their media center. now that they have a media specialist in that building. So we were delivering regular service to kids in that school, and it was one of our best mobile library spots. Our community services team, which is a service team that works across the whole city, has an active and regular partnership with CLUS, and is a member of the Adult Literacy Consortium, delivering services and classes to folks who are learning English. In addition, locally at our Daines Bluff Library, They do regular visits to Delwood Gardens and Senior Living up the street, regular partnership of Metro State on a book club, visits from and to Dayton's Bluff Rec, partnership with Urban Roots on the Seed Library. We'll have an outreach presence at Fiesta Latina and Rivoli Bluff Bash. I want to let you know that there are several locations relatively nearby, Arlington Hills, George Latimer Central Library, and Sunray Library. There are also, as you can see listed here, some mobile library stops in the area. An additional mobile library stop is coming soon on 7th. We're in active conversation with two different possible partners on 7th. And that's regardless of what happens in the future with Dayton's Bluff. It's important for us to continue to connect with community members in the area.

Oh, yes. Council President Naker and then Council Member Cohen.

Thanks, Chair Jost. I'm just curious, Director, 1.9 miles away, close to two miles away is not very close. I'm wondering, especially when this library unique partnership was created with Metro State, was there a standard or is there currently a standard as to how our library coverage should be geographically, how far any one resident should be from a library?

Chair Jost, Councilmember Nacre, we don't have a current standard like that.

Thanks, Chair. Thank you, Director. With the mobile library stops, how often are they going to each of those locations?

Generally, mobile library stops are on every other week. So there's like the first and third Tuesday at 10.30 or the second and fourth Thursday at 2 o'clock.

And then just a quick follow-up question. About how long is each stop?

Rebecca, do you know?

It depends on the stop and the interest. So between 30 minutes and two hours.

Thank you.

Thank you. Keep going.

So you're going to see some slides of data. And I want to say a word about data. Data is just data. The primary driver for this decision is that I was asked to reduce our budget. Right? And so I want to be really clear because I've heard this from community members and I've heard it from other folks. I can't reduce hours at other locations that we own without laying off staff. So hours reductions in buildings that the library owns equals staff reductions. Dayton's Bluff is a leased space. It is not fair that it is a leased space, and that's where it is. But that's where the cost savings come from. So as we look at this data, and as I look at this data, I am especially interested in having a conversation about what this data shows us about usage and what it doesn't show us. And Councilmember Johnson is absolutely right. There are lots of different ways we can tell the story about usage. But what I will absolutely continue to emphasize is that visitor count, which is the way that we count how many people come through the door, is an important metric. I can't deliver library services to you at a location unless you come through the door. Circulation absolutely is not the only important thing. Wi-Fi use is important. PC use is important. Program attendance. All of those things are important. And if you look in the appendix, you have all of that across all of our libraries. The main thing happening here is the cost of the lease. So I'm not going to walk through all this data, but you can see it here. I remain very interested and very passionate, regardless of what happens with Dayton's Bluff, to continue to have a conversation with Councilmember Johnson, with members of this community, to ensure that our library continues to be used in the way that I know this neighborhood values and wants their library to be used.

Councilmember Johnson? Thank you. And thank you, Director, for that framing and just the overall framing of it. I think it's really important to talk about that. And I won't even say that looking at the usage data that is presented, I won't take the time to really argue the numbers. I will put in framing that Dayton's Bluff is open 51 hours a week. Some other branches are open 55 to 59 hours a week. It has 14 computers and a 10-person meeting room. It's a fraction of some of the meeting room spaces of other libraries, Central, Arlington Hills. Its holiday and weather closures also follow Metro State University. It's closed on days that other branches are open. If you build a smaller store on a storefront, and you have less hours and less inventory, and then you measure it against a bigger store somewhere else across the city, and then you go, wow, this small store with the smaller inventory has less usage than anywhere else in the city, and you use that and compare it to another place with a bigger store, with a bigger storefront, and you're surprised that it has less visitors, I just want to share with you that that doesn't necessarily tell you the real data. It also doesn't communicate whether or not a neighborhood deserves a library. It's comparing apples to oranges. And I think that that tells you more about how we are investing in a community than under-investing. and a community itself. And so when I look at these numbers, I just want to put them in the frame that in spite of having a smaller library with smaller resources, with smaller hours of operation in other places across the city, these are still the numbers that we're putting up in 2025. I want to also be clear that Dayton's Bluff was not the lowest usage library in 2025. I want to also add in 2026, Dayton's Bluff library's usage is up 7% from where it was this time last year. And I just want to share some of the pieces around data and what we're looking through for usage. This number is twice over the entire population of Dayton's Bluff neighborhood. And when you're thinking about just visitors and people that are looking, I assume that every person in Dayton's Bluff that lived in Dayton's Bluff, including myself, went there 2.7 times as this would be the number in metrics that you would see. I think data is really incredibly telling, but I just want to frame it. We have put these numbers up despite not having an infrastructure that we own as a city-owned operated library in our community. And it's been like that for 22 years. And so just putting that frame of mind is that these numbers are coming up despite the fact that we as a city have not invested in an actual infrastructure building to own, to operate, to turn, to maintain. I see these numbers, along with the other slides, you'll see things around the 73% decline in usage when we have a 43% decline in usage of the systems overall as metrics and determinings. And I agree wholeheartedly that these aren't necessarily supposed to be indicative of whether a neighborhood stays there. But I have to reframe the usage data and to give it for context, because you're talking about a a square footage that is significantly smaller than other places in the city. You're also talking about a library that has smaller resources, smaller staff that has maintained and changed management multiple times. You're also talking about just several situations where we are disinvesting in Dayton's Bluff neighborhood, a neighborhood that is already disinvested in, a neighborhood with an average income lower than $50,000 for a family of four. And you're saying, use it the same as you would pretty much a supermarket in another area in the city. And that's just not a fair analysis. And so I just wanted to say that, reframe it, and to talk about why usage data in itself to justify a library existing or not existing is an inherently inequitable tool when you're talking about buildings of not the same size, operations of not the same size. And I will just add, in 2025 with the cyber attack, we literally had no computer usage. And so it's just ironic that we are using usage data in a year where we have to take into account the fact that Dayton's Buff Library continues to be a driving factor for Wi-Fi and computer usage. And that resource was not afforded to Dayton's Bluff residents, along with the rest of the city, and multiple times throughout the city. So just putting that into perspective, I'm also just like, I have several other remarks that all come in today. So I'm really thankful that Dayton's Bluff's library information was pulled out of the appendix and put in the beginning, because I think it'll make for a fruitful conversation as we move forward.

I really appreciate that. I think what I want to just emphasize, it's difficult to go after you, but it's just to emphasize that the 15 visits per hour, even though we're seeing the data, but that's a person that's getting engaged with resources, with a library staff that deeply cares about them being not just present in the space, but that they're utilizing and accessing all of the resources. wonderful things that our libraries have to offer. So when I even see the 15 visits per hour, I'm thinking about an individual walking in, seeing a friendly face, someone that's willing to help them, assist them with printing off a resume, connecting their kids to a homework help time, signing their kid up for reading together, or even accessing one of our mental health assistance through our library. So even though, yes to all the data, and I really appreciate that greater context, Chair Johnson, to me, to be honest, this number could be even lower in terms of visits per hour, and there's still an incredible inherent value of a single person walking into a library like Dayton's Bluff that is walkable from their neighborhood, that's serving their neighborhood, that assists them where they're at. And I just want to emphasize for myself, again, that number could be lower and it doesn't change the value that I see in terms of those folks walking in to access city resources. So I appreciate your comments, Chair Johnson.

Yeah, thank you. I hear what everyone is saying. There's a lot of data in this presentation. There's also even more in the appendix. And I agree that the usage data is much more complex, just like any data set is. And there's a lot of different variables and things that could be talked about when you're comparing one library to another. And I also agree that the usage that we're looking at and the cost savings and things like that don't necessarily equal the value that these libraries and these services provide for our residents. So I appreciate that framing as we're moving forward. I'm going to have us continue, if that's all right.

Thank you, Chair Jost. And I don't want to get in a quibble about data. And knowing that all our libraries are open different numbers of hours, that's why I've included in the appendix by hour data. So we've sort of equalized against a library that's open 51 hours versus a library that's open 59 hours. So understood, there's all kinds of differences. And also, I just want to be really clear that all of our This is not a value judgment. I know it feels like that. It feels like that to my staff as well. And this library use is valid and it's important. And also I have the almost impossible task of cutting a budget. So I want to just be very clear that this is not a value statement. This is about me looking around in the library budget, knowing that the mayor had a priority for not laying off frontline staff, and looking at the next thing that costs the most in our budget. And in this case, it's our buildings. In this case, it's the lease. So yes, there are other libraries that have similar use patterns to Dayton's Bluff, but the significant difference being that I can invest in them. I can control more of how I hope that they will continue to be used more in the future, and Hayden Heights is a great example of that. So I want to kind of refocus to nobody values libraries more than me and my team, and also we're not having a budget-neutral conversation. Of course, 15 visits per hour is legitimate because of all the things that happen there. But I have a budget problem, and I'm looking to you all and the mayor to help figure out what are we going to do about this, and also how we can continue to get our libraries better used all over the city. A question was asked to me in preparation for this meeting, and so I appreciate the help of my OFS colleagues. The question was how to keep Dayton's Bluff and fund the safety specialists in 2027 and 2028. So you'll see the chart here. The total 2027 gap is $286,722. We were also asked what amount of increase that would be to the overall levy. You'll see that information there. And in a minute, I'm going to start talking about library safety specialists. And you'll see the information requested there, approximately what that would result in for a levy increase in 2028. So I am going to move on to library safety specialists.

Is that OK? I think that's okay. I know there will be more questions. We'll have more time at the end.

Okay. It's intertwined, and as I said, that's where it is right now. So as this body knows and has been so supportive of, the library started a new safety strategy. in 2021 with ARPA funding, and it has proven more successful than we could have imagined. In the 2027 budget, there is an investment in the library safety strategy. There is 3.0 FTE in our library safety specialist in the general fund base budget. You can see the number there. There is, and that's ongoing. There is 1.0 FTE for 2027 only. And then there is two FTE in the general government special projects carryover. So that's the remainder of the formerly ARPA money. We request permission to carry it over to use in 2027. And then we have succeeded in getting grant funding for one FTE in our library special funds through a grant from the Mellon Foundation. So this proposed plan for sustaining the remaining four of the seven safety specialists is the repurposing of public service positions from Dayton's Bluff Library as they become vacant in 2027. Special fund investments. Again, library safety specialists strategy. There are two library safety specialists in the general government special projects fund. This is a repeat of what I just said, but it's in special funds. And then one library safety specialist in the library special fund via that restricted grant.

Oh. Council Member Johnson.

So can you share a little bit more about why they're intertwined? You mentioned that this is the way that it is. I guess I'm trying to understand how gaining money from the INSPLA closure through attrition is somehow intertwined with library safety specialists being in the general fund. Help me understand how. Where's the swap and what is actually being proposed?

Sure, you bet. I don't know if this chart will help. So right now you'll see the chart of the 2027 budget proposal. And you'll see that some of those positions are ongoing. These 3.0 are ongoing. These others are only one-time funding. And so how this is intertwined with the Dayton's Bluff Library is, you heard me mention before, if the Dayton's Bluff Library closes, my staff won't lose their positions. So those positions will be absorbed back into the library system. But over time, through attrition, those positions would be converted into library safety specialists on a permanent basis. Not the people, but the money for those positions.

And then as a follow-up, does that fact change if Dayton's Bluffs remains open? Do those staff not still have the same type of issues, or I guess the reason why they would leave, wouldn't that remain the same?

Chair Jones, Councilmember Johnson, Just to be clear, it has nothing to do with the individuals at Dayton's Bluff. It has to do with attrition. So in any given year in any department, people quit or retire or do anything like that. And so then we have a vacancy. So were we to have a vacancy, I would repurpose that into a library safety specialist. And so I just want to be clear. If Dayton's Bluff were to stay open, I don't have a pathway for permanent funding of my library safety specialists. I know it's super complex and is an example of multi-year funding, which I know that this body and the mayor are really interested in, but let's keep with it because I know it's confusing.

Yeah, because one of the questions that I asked that you shared that we budget systematically, we don't budget individual library-wise. Because when I asked the question around how much money do we spend in each library, could you provide the budgets for what we spend in each library, the response I got was we don't budget per library. We budget systematically. That's correct. And so I'm wondering... How, in this case, are we budgeting specific to Dayton's Bluff and not systematically around the staffing for systems for library specialists, being that they service, library specialists service the entire system. That's right. But we're asking for Dayton's Bluff Library to solve for the budget impacts of the library safety specialists, despite not having one on their site. And my understanding is not necessarily having a permanent one placed on the east side.

Council Member Johnson, I'm not sure I'm understanding your question. You want me to...

The Innsbluff Library specifically, the budget for the library is being used to fix a systemic problem, but we don't tend to budget systematically. So I'm just wondering, how did we get there? Like, how did we get there as a solution?

I think, I don't know if I can help. I think what... is what Director Hartman is saying is that because, so the library safety specialists have a multi-year funding challenge. The lease and these other costs at the Dayton's Bluff Library are what are being proposed as being cut. So So the library safety specialists and the Dayton's Bluff Library are on the list of choices for places that cuts could be made. I don't believe that library safety specialists as a system-wide service are tied specifically to any library like the Dayton's Bluff Library, which I think is what Council Member Johnson is getting at.

So thank you, Chair Jost, and I'll stick with it. You are right. As a library system, we do not budget individually by library. Our staff belong to the whole system, and they are assigned to branches, right? So when I have, in this budget, Dayton's Bluff is proposed to close. And so there will be staff savings from that. And there is also a multi-year funding challenge for safety specialists at the system level. That is how they are intertwined. So were Dayton's Bluff to not close, then that's great for Dayton's Bluff, but then I have a longer-term funding sustainability challenge for four of my safety specialists.

Based on the proposed budget in front of us, I mean, that's why. Thank you, yes.

One feeds the other. Right. It does not have to, but in the proposed budget, that is how it is. Right.

Thank you. Council Member Kim.

How many safety specialists do we have right now, and are there any positions vacant?

We have seven safety specialists right now, and I believe we have one vacancy.

And I think the one thing I'll just point out, and then I think we can keep going, is on your slide, can you go back to the safety specialist slide?

Yes, sorry, I was just going back to that phrase there.

if we, maybe the one before that, if we were to find, you know, we do have a multi-year funding need here, should we find another path for sustainable funding for library safety specialists that would help solve, that would be one way to solve the issue of the cost for the, or the cost savings of the Dayton's Bluff Library for 2027, potentially.

Chair Jost, yes, thanks for simplifying a complicated thing. As you can see in the proposed budget, I have my need met for 2027, but I do not have a need met for four of the seven safety specialists beyond 2027. I know right now we are in a year-by-year budget process, but I also have been asked by the mayor and also this body is to think about our needs on a multi-year And so that's what this chart attempts to do. It attempts to find a way through that does not plunk them all onto the operating budget at one time.

And basically, this is, again, only based on the mayor's proposed budget and the levy that was proposed by the mayor. So there could be multiple different pathways to finding alternative sources for library safety specialists, finding sources for the lease for the Dayton's Bluff Library and those costs. But this is all just based on the proposed budget that's in front of us. Okay, I think we'll keep going. We're just doing a quick time check here. We've got 20 or so minutes left. I'm on it.

Two other reductions to bring to your attention. We're taking a nutrition reduction. A nutrition reduction means we have to hold positions more vacant. This is about the same rate that we held this year in 2025, and we are doing okay. So move on to higher priority things. We're okay there. We are also, you'll also see a shift of partial library materials funding to a special fund, and that accounts for the revenue that I'm going to talk about right here. So to make a long story short, revenue for the library, like how much you pay for printing or copying, comes in through our special funds. So you also see in this proposed budget a one-time investment in updated visit count technology across all library locations. Right now, it's a very manual process. So just to be clear, we do have a way to count people that come through our doors. It's like a clicker thing. And our staff go and look on it, write it down on a piece of paper, email it over. I'm looking for an investment in real-time technology there so that we are better, so that we could actually track by location, by hour, by day of the week, what locations are busy when. I think it's a really important thing for us to be able to know, and we don't have the ability to do that right now. You'll also see a fee increase here. The library alone cannot solve the city's increase in revenue challenges, but we also recognize we want to do our part. Black and white copies and prints, we're proposing increasing from 15 cents to 20 cents per page. Notary services proposing increasing from $1 per transaction to $2 per transaction. And our staff are working to pilot a project to charge for professional posed photography at George Latimer Central Library after hours. History of our budget to actual is that we are always under budget. And library culture, as all of you know, is one of following the rules. And so I would ask you to note the difference here. That is all.

I think that's a really important point to make. I want to also bring up when the library doesn't spend its budgeted amount at the end of the year, whatever's left over goes into our library fund balance. We have our own library fund balance because we are a separate library agency and we have our own levy. And so it's my understanding, I mean this is a question for Ms. Mitchell, that we also have a library fund balance right now of close to $9 million. And that in the past has been sometimes a way that we have used one-time funding to be able to support needs one time, but it's very challenging because the library fund balance is also part of the general fund balance. And we have a general fund balance policy that needs to be at least 15%. And that impacts our AAA bond rating. And if we impact that, that costs the city more money to borrow money. And so, as Director Hartman also just mentioned, as we're looking at budget to actuals, and the library has continued to be a great, you know, fiscally responsible by underspending, that's not the case with a lot of other departments. Some departments continue to overspend, and so we're in the situation where the library has a large fund balance, proportionally, and that money has to be used to help solve other issues with the rest of the general fund which I'll say makes some of the problems we're facing here very frustrating when we're looking at the cuts to the library that are being proposed, and that's the situation that we're in. I don't know, Ms. Mitchell, can you share anything else about the fund balance?

Chair Just, you've got it all.

OK, Councilmember Johnson.

Thank you, Chair. Can I just ask a clarifying question? Did, in fact, $913,000 from 2025 go to the library fund balance? Did the full total of that, the $913,351, did it go to the library fund balance?

Chair Johnson, Councilmember, or excuse me, Chair Jost, Chair Johnson. 2025 numbers are unaudited, so I'm not sure where it will land once we finish all of our final entries, but that is what would happen. If that is the final number at the end, once all final entries are done, that is how that would work.

Okay, so for 2024, the amount that went into the fund balance was $870,000. For 2023, it was $713,000 and so forth.

Councilmember, yes-ish. The other side of this that isn't showing is the revenue. So it's the net between the spending and revenue. Library revenues, I believe, usually come in pretty close to budget. So I wouldn't expect there to be a huge variance there. So I would think that for each of those, it would be in that general range.

OK, and then as just a follow up and something to note here, I'm also looking at the 2026 numbers. And I know that they're un-audited, and we go into those spaces. But just sharing that, how much, again, is the total for library specialists? The total amount per library specialist, again?

It's approximately $110,000.

Okay, and so the budget for four, your short four library specialists, so about 440, is that accurate? 440 plus 270, just doing basic math, is lower than $913,000 that we return to the library fund balance. And I just want to share that I am concerned with... there being this presumed issue with holding the Dayton's Buff Library in operation and maintaining library specialists. It seems a little interesting to me that for the last consecutive three budget cycles prior to this one, we've had a quarter of a million dollars or more in the budget fund for the fund balance that we currently operate that currently holds $9 million in it. I am really interested in knowing what your budget to actuals for 2026 ends up being, being that this number was pulled in August 24. I know it's not audited. I know there's a lot of things that go into it, but there's only three months left of the year. And so I am curious if we will actually spend $10.5 million in the next three months. Because if we're not, then I actually would encourage my colleagues to really think about that number. Because do we need to put back in $1 million into the library fund balance? Or can we save Dayton's Bluff Library? And can we fund library specialists? Because I think to this piece for me, this was actually a slide that I thought was fascinating. really important because it gives the reality is that we are seeing that is, I think, distinct in different departments. So often in departments, when they come up and talk about budget cuts, they are operating from a deficit. In the library budget in particular, we do not have that same issue showing up in the budget to actuals. The variance is actually something to pay attention to, and we're proposing a budget solver possibly for an actual budget problem that does not exist. if we are able to be able to carry over funding in any way, or even just to allocate with the decision that quite literally we get to make, which is that library fund balance transfer may happen, but does not have to happen. And I think that's one of the questions that I have for us as we think about it, because again, the savings from this is $270,000. The amount of money that is needed to be found for next year is also less combined than the total variance that we had from 2025, and that was a weird year. And so looking into this year, the trend is that it's increasing. So I'm just looking at the trends, looking at the patterns, and simply identifying that I don't actually think there's a budget issue here. And so that's something that I will just share for you all as your consideration.

Yeah, Council Member Johnson, thanks for bringing that up. That number also jumped out at me. I think it's my understanding, and Director Hartman, you can correct me, but there's still a few months of payroll to be caught up on and some payments that only come through at the end of the year. But To Councilmember Johnson's point, the library does continue to underspend its budget every year. The money, I think we did use some of that money for transforming libraries in the past before it went into the fund balance. But fund balance money in the library can only be used for the libraries. But it's also my understanding at the end of the year that the library underspending gets compared to all the other departments and some of the overspending. And sometimes that money is used to offset the entire budget at the end of the year. And so that's the other thing is like we it is it is in our best interest to spend the money if we can in this year.

We certainly are trying our best.

Yeah, and that's what's very frustrating is just that this is the library's money, but it's being used to offset other departments. And that's why sometimes we don't always have all this money left over because we need it to balance the budget at the end of the year. And sometimes that's because of... whether it's the cybersecurity attack, the police department continues to overspend their budget, and things like that, and that's what puts us in quite a bind. I will go to Council Vice President Yang, Council Member Coleman, Did you have another? It was a follow-up. Okay.

It was a follow-up clarification.

How about you, Council Member Johnson, Council Vice President Yang, Council Member Coleman?

And just to clarify, we signed the lease for Metro State University under suspension as a council action last month. So when we're looking at just the contract and actually the contract years, cutting a check to Metro State to protect our lease and this year, as in a this year expense, is a doable thing that we can do. We don't have to wait to January 1, 2027 to pay the Metro State University for our lease. So just to be clear, we signed a three-year lease with Metro State University under suspension as a council. That's an active thing that we have now. This would actually be a lease breach. So just wanted to share that from fiscal year to fiscal year. It doesn't operate in the same fiscal year that we have.

Thank you. Council Vice President Yang.

Thanks, Churchill. I first want to say thank you, Dr. Hartman, for your presentation today. I know that it's, I mean, I definitely feel what you're sharing, what you shared in the beginning about it being a really tough presentation. I do want to get my thoughts in before the meeting ends, which is that I'm not supportive of the closure of the Danesbuth Library. There is not an alternative at all for increasing library services for that neighborhood. And I've mentioned at the table here, if we were to do something really drastic and big like this, it must be mirrored with a plan on how we do ensure, especially our communities of... communities that are from marginalized areas to areas of concentrated poverty, low-income families, working-class families to continue to have that access. I know that every single year we always have the same conversation about the library fund balance. I want to bring that up because I think this was my seventh year at the council, probably my seventh year hearing about it over and over again. And I can't say enough how our St. Paul Public Libraries has really been the one carrying the heavy load when it comes to even putting dollars into the fund balance overall. And I really believe it's time for us to create major wins for our library system. I want that. And so I wanted to express that as my commitment making strides toward that this year. And I wanted to just really call on all of us on the board here to continue doing that too. Because I believe that these cuts that you've had to navigate through and just even come up with, we don't need it at all. And we can definitely find a solve for it, even if it doesn't come from the library fund balance. You all, as my colleagues, have heard me talk a lot about early decertification of TIF districts, which I'm very supportive of, of all of them, really. And so I just want to continue bringing in that spirit of hope and opportunities for us, instead of continuing to keep us trapped in this conversation around scarcity. Overall, I just am hopeful, and I will continue sharing that out. And again, I wanted to express I'm not supportive of the closure and wanted to just let you know, Council Member Johnson, I am here as a partner with you in that work, and thank you as well for being an advocate for our Eastside communities. Oh, last thing is, I just noticed that there isn't anything around library collections in the slides here. So last year I did share that I'm not supportive of us using Cultural Star money as one-time funding for library collections. I've even heard from Star board members who are very opposed to the idea of continuing to do that. wanted to just reiterate where my stance is on it. And so is there any sort of proposal at all for library collections and where that money would come from?

Chair Adjost, Councilmember Yang, it's in the appendix. It's page 33. that illustrates the council investments in the past and what the amount needed in 2027 would be in order to get to that 15% of keeping our spending power level. I defer any conversations about what that spending source would be to all of you. I don't have a secret one.

Okay, thank you. I did see that slide, but I didn't see what basically the plan for next year would be to increase the dollars for that. Yeah, I leave that with you. Okay, thank you.

Okay, so we have Council Member Coleman and Council President Naker. Director Hartman does still have maybe five or six more slides after this, so I will have you guys ask your questions. I think then let's go through the presentation, and then maybe we'll end up with a few minutes left at the end, if that's all right. Council Member Coleman.

Thank you, Chair. I'll just quickly pick up on the theme of a little bit of hope and optimism from Councilmember Yang. I do think that it's very clear that there's no interest on this board in closing the Dayton's Wealth Library. And I think it's just a question of what is the mechanism that we use to make sure we have the funding. It feels like a nonstarter from my perspective. And I totally appreciate that you have to present the budget as it is. And also, I'm really grateful that we have this board that is willing to do whatever it takes to save the library, because we know how absolutely essential it is. With that in mind, I'm trying to understand the different mechanisms that we might be able to explore. So actually, my question is for Ms. Mitchell, because I don't have seven years of talking about the fund balance. Can you just explain, is it a legal requirement that all of the, like, if we were to say whatever money is left at the end of 2026, we're putting to the libraries in 2027, we want that to roll over. Is that a law that we change? Is that a resolution? Is that something that we can't change? What would that look like technically?

Chair Jost, Council Member Johnson, thank you for the question. First, I want to correct something that I said earlier. The slide that we saw had just the spending side. I have some other information here that I'm looking at that shows actual contributions and use of fund balance in the last few years. For 2025, the contribution to library fund balance, once we factor in revenue and all other sort of like very technical accounting things, the contribution is actually $68,000. And then in 2024, it was actually a use of fund balance of $120,000. And then in 2023, and I don't have details on what this was, but it was a higher contribution closer to a million, so I'm not really sure what the variance is there. So more details, we can dig into the details on 2023 in particular, but this is only sort of less than half of the equation for fund balance. There's an adopted policy around the fund balance percent that we have to maintain as a city. And that's 15%. And as Chair Jones mentioned, the library is a portion of that. The library general fund and the city general fund combined need to be 15% of the next year's adopted budget. So that's a challenge for us every year in just the way that that policy is set up, because every year the adopted budget grows. So for us to even maintain a percentage with the denominator growing, we need to be contributing to fund balance every year to stay at or above the 15%. And I'll say the 15% is low. That's our minimum percent. And actually, cities of our size usually target 20% to 30%. So coming in at 16% and 17% is pretty low for us. I am not sure if there is a legal requirement around the way that things get accounted. I believe that it's just sort of a natural accounting function that the funds unspent in the library fund remain in the library fund. But they're certainly accessible in a number of ways. We can do budget amendments that access use of fund balance. totally walled off. Does that sort of answer the question? Yeah, it's helpful. Thank you. Council President Aker.

Thanks, Chair Jost. Two comments and a question. First of all, in response to that information that you just shared, Ms. Mitchell, I have to say it's really discouraging to see this information be shared with us in advance, presented here, and then to have that context that you're referring to from something we haven't seen. This body can only make decisions that are as good as the information that we're presented with, and that This slide should not have been presented to us without that additional information. It is misleading. It's erroneous. And it leads us to a line of questioning is not backed up by the data that you're talking about that we haven't seen. So I just think partial information is similar to misinformation. We have to know the rest of what you're talking about. And I just really want to ask Double Down on OFS in particular, as you're reviewing department slides, please make sure that we have full information and that we're not talking about things that are backed by additional data we haven't seen. Um, that's one thing. Secondly, I do want to say director to the vice president's question about materials budget. I'm disappointed to see that it seems like since we passed a resolution at this body saying that we would be keeping purchasing power constant year over year in the library materials budget, that the base budget for materials has gone down. Um, the goal of that resolution wasn't to give ourselves an obligation to fill a larger and larger gap every year because the base budget that's being proposed is decreasing. But to really put the onus on the library board, on the library director and department to present to the board a materials budget that keeps pace with inflation and a solve for that. And to the Vice President's point, I don't think any of us want to use Cultural Star or one-time dollars to make up that gap. But it seems like every year, the base budget is getting smaller. And so that gap of what it would take is really growing. So happy to hear your thoughts on that. And then my question relates to, and I agree with Ms. Coleman, Ms. Johnson, everyone around this table. I don't think there's interest, Vice President Yang, in closing the Dayton's Book Library. I'm wondering what conversations we've had with Metro State about the lease, about the terms of the lease. It seems that the full cost of this is truly the lease arrangement that we have. And it is surprising that we just signed a new lease a couple of weeks ago when this was being considered or proposed. And I'm wondering what we've discussed with them.

Yeah. Chair Jones, Council President Naker, just sort of respectfully, In response to your question about needing to make sure we have the actual information from OFS, this is a council provided template. So we're going to need your ask ahead of time in order to provide you with the information that you seek. This template is about a variance, not about what remains in the library fund balance. So we can do a better job, but only if we know what your questions are ahead of time and in the template. I'm wanting to work together, but also I don't think it's fair when that template is provided to us ahead of time. We're doing what we can with what you've asked us to provide. So very truly, respectfully, I know that continues to come up. And we're doing the best with what you've provided to us, all the departments are.

OK. four minutes until HRA is supposed to start. And I have a line of questions from folks. And I know we still have about five or six more slides. So I guess, I don't know. Chair Johnson, do you want us to keep going? I know we have HRA at 2 o'clock.

I just have to respectfully, as the chair of the budget committee and who creates the templates, on Friday when the slides were given, you had a direct question about the fund balance. And so, Director, there was a question that was given matching our norms and our council process for how to give those to you. Director Harney did respond to my office with unaudited financials that I could easily out in this conversation, but I'm choosing not to in regards to an ongoing conversation offline. But yeah, I mean, in reality, I asked those questions to Ms. Mitchell knowing in some places that I could continue to move forward about this slide. The slide itself looks factual. The question is how much money got into the fund balance, which does differ substantially. So the question remains, where did that money go? So $913,000 from 2025 is unspent in your budget, and it did not hit the fund balance. The question remains for OFS, where did that go? And so that's the question that's given to you. But I just want to respectfully share with you We did send it to you, and we did send it to you ahead of time. I asked a specific question. It was chosen not to be added to the slide or the slide deck. That was a choice. And so I just want to share that with you in full transparency because I have my email that I sent you 21 questions on Friday, and I did not see your slides until then. So I appreciate the template use. I do not respect sharing that the template is the reason that you're not able to answer a question that was given to you. And that maybe isn't related to just you. That's related to the information that we receive. But I just wanted to correct that because, We have been talking about the fund balance specifically. The decision to not include the fund balance or information regarding it was a choice.

Council Member Jensen, I was in the library preview meeting a few days ago, and we did talk about the library fund balance. I think that with... the library fund balance numbers, some of them being unaudited and things like that. That's why they weren't put publicly into this presentation. I think also that the, I know that you did ask a lot of questions and we do have our template that we send in advance. I do agree that If OFS could follow up with more detail on the amount of money put into the fund balance, that would be helpful. And I know sometimes we have deviated from the budget template, but it does take time to pull that information together. And so I don't think that... It was intentional of not providing information. I don't think that's what's happening here. I think that it takes time to be able to pull those things together accurately, especially when we're talking about finances that haven't been audited, to make sure that accurate information is provided and that staff has a reasonable amount of time, ideally not over the weekend, to have to pull those things together. I think, Council Member Johnson, we do have to start AHR at 2 o'clock. Is that correct? So I guess we should probably wrap up here. I know there are a few more slides left. Director Harmon, do you have anything you want to say?

Sorry to end on that note. I really respect this body, respect the work that we're trying to do together and also just we're going to have to keep working respectfully together forward and it's my job to work with both you and and OFS as well, and I stand ready to provide you with any information and look forward to continuing to support libraries, and thank you for that.

Thank you. Well, this is a big discussion. I know we didn't get to get to all of these slides today, and I thought that that might be the case, so please follow up with questions. You can include myself and Kamud, and we will try to get them answered. I do just want to say, in closing, I hear what folks are saying at the table as we're talking about the closure of a library. that's very painful it's difficult i do agree that i i don't think that there is an appetite at this table to move forward with a budget that includes the closure of the dayton's bluff library i'll say that i am fully committed i have appreciated working in partnership with councilman johnson Director Hartman and with all of you on a matter of what does that look like. And I'll say that I am supportive of a variety of different ways that we could do that, whether it's, you know, we do have our own levy power here at the library. We have our own levy that we can control. We could consider raising it. We have a lot of information to explore about the library fund balance or unspent dollars. We might have alternative ways to be able to fund the library safety specialists, whether it's within the libraries or even considering or being creative and considering the police budget. They provide public safety. Are there ways that we might be able to support that? That would really, I think, be more... ways that are more equitable and more fair when we're looking at the ways that the library budget is disproportionately impacted relative to other departments. So I'm open to any and all options. I appreciate the discussion today, and I know that we have a big challenge ahead of us, but I am confident that we'll be able to come up with solutions that will be in the best interest of everyone. So thank you, all of you. Thank you to Director Hartman, and thank you to all of the staff that put so much effort into this presentation. I really appreciate it. And with that, we are adjourned.