Library Board - Regular Meeting

I I'm going to be finding that. I'm looking today. I should take

you on a tour of the places to find Diet Doctor Pepper in the vicinity. I know them all.

Yeah. Oh, it was a cancel? Yep.

It's okay. I as you'll be surprised to learn. I check my email.

Okay. Sorry. Alright. Let's get a

little in here. Good. Buddy.

All right.

I'd like to call the meeting of the library board to order. Roll call, please.

I can't get it wrong.

Hooey? Here. Coleman? Here. Johnson? Here. Kim? Naker? Here. Gain? Here. And Chair Jones?

Here.

Six present, one absent, meeting council member Kim, and one being excused.

Alrighty, well first before we get started, I just wanna make sure that we, there you are, that we welcome our new board member, Council Member Coleman. We're really excited to have you and have you join our team and like to welcome Council Member Coleman to her first library board meeting. Alrighty.

The first item on the agenda is the approval of minutes. Minutes 25 dash 99, approving 08/06/2025 by the board minutes.

All right. I'll take a motion from Council Member Yang to approve the library board minutes. Is there any discussion? All right. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye. Anyone opposed?

Six in favor, zero opposed. The minutes have been adopted. The next and final item on the agenda is staff report 25 dash 190, the 2026 library budget proposal.

Alright. So I will turn it over to director Hartman, to give our library budget presentation. So director Hartman, welcome.

Good afternoon chair Joseph, members of the library board. Happy to present the 2026 proposed budget for our official name, the Saint Paul Public Library Agency. I wanna start by summarizing some of the changes from 2025 that you'll see in the 2026 proposed budget. I have a list here and I do have further slides in the appendix for your review, and we can talk about them as we go. This is the overview slide.

We are eliminating 1.3 FTE that are currently vacant. That is a point eight in public services, a point five in maintenance. There is a one point o FTE to be repurposed in operations. The proposal reduces the library materials budget, decreases the library substitute staffing budget, increases the attrition rate, eliminates the read brave budget from the general fund, shifting that to special funds, the program will not change, and it reduces a contracted services line. The FTE oh, yes.

Sheridan has a question.

Yeah, sorry to start us off right. First slide, not the earliest question. But, Doctor, would you be able to just look like to so the rebrief program, I I remember just kind of reading the some of the briefings and just hearing about how well it's going. So I just wanted to check and see if that shift to special fund change that changes that funding at all from, like, ongoing to one time at all in the shift? Since my assumption is that the rebate budget in the general fund is ongoing, whereas the special fund is one time. So I just wanted to double check that.

Yeah. Chair Gilst, Council Member Johnson. That's correct. So, the Friends will be funding that additional $20,000 in the 2026 year, and that is a commitment for 2026 only at this time.

Okay, thank you.

I wanna flag that the vacancies that we're taking, the point eight in public services in particular, will mean that we'll need to reduce library hours at the Arlington Hills Library by four hours per week. You've heard me say before here, and you've heard from others that whenever we lose a position in public services, even if a vacancy, that means that we'll need to reduce service hours to the public. And so, this case, we identified that the busiest times at the Arlington Hills libraries are in air in the afternoon and the evening, and the mornings that they have story time. So, this proposal reduces their hours by four a week. Two days a week, they will open up at noon instead of ten.

That will allow them still two mornings to do story times.

I'd like to Council President Nacre has a has a question.

I'm jumping on the first slide bandwagon here. Director, can you just clarify? It makes sense to me why losing staff would require reduction in hours. Why would losing a position that has been vacant require a reduction in hours?

Chair Jones, Councilmember Nacre, the position is not currently vacant. It's a planned retirement. So, that would have been filled. Were it not to be filled, then I wouldn't be able to keep the libraries open the same number of hours.

Thank you for

that question.

Thank you.

Thanks. And Director Hartman, can you I think you touched on this a little bit, but basically the decision around which library and which hours was made based on like considering the library use across the system and where it might be most appropriate. Is that correct?

Yeah, Chair Jones, thanks for saying that. That's correct. I don't want to reduce public services hours anywhere. But when faced with this, it was important to look at where our locations were not being used as well and during what times. And so, looked at visit use data and circulation data to identify that these budget cuts could have the least impact on staff and on the public as well.

Council Member Ray.

Thanks, Chair Jules. Can you say a bit more on what data was used for to determine Arlington Hills as the library to cut hours from?

Sure. Chair Jones, Councilmember Yang, we have circulation data by hour for all of our library locations, and we also have visit counts by the day and by the month. And so, I looked at the circulation and I looked at the visit count data. And then I also spent time talking with staff in general about when are times in the library that are not as well used as other times. Arlington Hills has fifty nine hours per week now.

So, it's one of our larger libraries in terms of hours. So, this would make it more like a medium sized library. Arlington Hills does not get the same use overall as our other libraries that have fifty nine hours a week. So, that was a factor in making this recommendation.

Thank you. Yeah,

I just have a follow-up because the library it's also a rec center too. So, are you counting only people who are at the library or are also at the gym and the other areas too?

Chair Jones, council member Yang, the library tracks the usage in the library space itself. To my knowledge, parks does not have a visitor counter. We have that just in the library.

Okay. Yeah. I just wanna make comments on this. I I'm not sure what is the the best thought to make it. So I would just say here, which is that I am very opposed to the the hour reductions here.

I this this is something I said in my in our presentation earlier from OFS. I for me, it's a I think it's a priority that we as a city think about how we can fully fund ours over at our rec centers and libraries. If we don't do it, there isn't going to be another government body that comes and fills in that gap for And I will just name that, again, like this is a rec space where we have families, kids coming in using the gym, playing basketball, even during the day as well. And I'm not sure if we're looking at, you know, if it's just people coming into the library or if it's checking out books and all that, but not everybody who comes into the library comes and checks out books. Know, they're there for a play space as well.

And so I think this just really goes back to a lot of the values that we have shared over and over at the table here about libraries not only being a space for reading and for checking out books, but also it serves many other purposes too. And so for me it is a I'm again another thing I'll mention too is that this is an area in the East Side where there are very high needs in our communities from economic to just even needing spaces to be able to use the internet and much more. And so it's very, very I would just say shocking to to see this be a part of the proposal, and I'm very, very opposed to it.

Thanks, Councilmember Yang. I think I'll I'll just also share. So it's my understanding, director Hartman, that these these budget changes were basically, you know, at the direction of OFS and the mayor's office when they're looking at we just talked earlier today about cuts being made to every department that were proportional to their proportion of the general fund. And it's my understanding that that options were shared within that process to be able to make what would have been a targeted cut that the library department needed to meet. And so that's kind of where this is stemming from, correct?

Chair Jost, yes, as you heard from my colleagues and OFS this morning, the budget process did require departments, given the budget reality, to require departments to put some impacts here on the table that relate to staff vacancies, but also the impacts of what happens when you keep a staff vacancy. So I realize I'm one of the early departments to go, but nothing that I'm putting here on this list or any of my department director colleagues will put before you makes us happy. And yet these are some choices that we're putting forward.

And so then, just if we were to restore the four hours per week, for example, at Arlington Hills Library, that would require restoring the point eight vacant FTE or finding the funding from another source. Is that correct?

Chair Jones, yes. We it's specifically related to that vacancy in public services that's contributing to the decrease in public service hours.

Thank you. And I appreciate the conversation. I know that some of the reductions in different spaces are never agreed to I'm sure you didn't find joy in the cuts here. But since this is a position that's currently occupied, seems to be participating in a retirement, could you just financially put the numbers to that point eight of public services? Like financially, how much money is that?

Chair Jones, council member Johnson, I do that have that on an upcoming slide.

Okay. When you get to that slide, would you mind pointing it out? Absolutely. Appreciate it. And we'll let you get to that slide. This

is the first slide. Okay.

We'll keep we'll

keep going. Okay. No no worries.

Okay. Alright. I'll move to

the second slide. So this first slide was changes to general fund, and I also want to point out some changes that are not in the general fund, they are in other funding sources. So, in other city funds, we are thrilled to be able to see a $1,000 lease for a temporary location for the Rondo Community Library, while we are doing some renovation work for the Rondo location currently at University in Dale. It was really important to us to continue to deliver library services in the Rondo neighborhood. So, we're thrilled to be able to work with Benny and his team on the Holly Q.

Brown Community Center. We will lease a place to deliver library services while the Rondo Library is receiving a renovation library to the interior entranceway and to the public restrooms. While we are doing that, we wanna make sure that we continue to be an excellent neighbor at the corner of University And Dale, and provide safety for the neighborhood and the perimeter of the building while we are closed to the public. So, is the next item here you see for $90,000 for contracted security. That would be for the current Rondo location while it is temporarily closed to the public.

Additionally, you'll see safety materials and supplies from the opioid settlement that is funding that we had last year, and combined with this year, and that is used to support some of our library safety work, in particular the purchase of Narcan and other supplies.

Thank you, Director Herman. Council Member Bowie has

a question. Thank you, Chair Joyce, and thank you, Director Marine for this. I know we've had conversations and have some presentations in the future to talk more in-depth about the renovation plans and some

of the

safety measurements. I do have questions though for the budgetary aspect of it. I know you have like the $100,000 for the lease, but is there going to

be

any presentation on like any changes in staffing? Because I can only imagine if you're like downsizing like the Rondo Library square footage compared to Hallie Q. Brown, you know, if there's any changes to staffing and programs and if that's going to affect the budget in any way.

Chair Jones, Councilmember Bui, there it'll it will be a smaller square footage, but we are anticipating keeping the same number of hours for that temporary location at Hallie Q. Brown. We are in the process of developing those services, and we'll be ready to share them with you as soon as we finalize them. What we have let our staff know is that we may not need the same number of staff at Rondo, but all of our staff will remain employed. So what that means is that they would temporarily be working out of another library, and we don't know what that number is yet until we identify the services, and continue to work with our colleagues in real estate to make the best use of the space that we'll be leasing at Hallie Q Brown.

Additionally, in the proposed capital budget, you will see that there is 3,550,000.00 for the Hayden Heights Library in 2027. That's awesome news. That closes the gap. That allows us to begin that project next year and we could see construction begin as soon as construction season next year. We are thrilled to see that.

As you know, that was a key That is a key component of our transforming library strategy and we're thrilled to be able to bring that to the Greater East Side. Additionally, the CIB budget proposes $784,000 for Riverview. That gives us a really great start. It helps the Friends leverage that city money for additional private donations. There will still there is still a gap for Riverview, and our project timeline is estimated for that now at approximately 2028 to 2029, but are thrilled to see that commitment in city funds there on the ledger.

Councilmember Wood. Thank you. Chair Giles, just again about the Rondo Library. I see here on the capital budget, it doesn't include any of the renovation numbers. So can you explain, like, is are these funds that's gonna be transferred over from this year? And if that can be demonstrated in terms of like where that is on this like budget item.

Mhmm. Chair Jones, Council Member Bui, we received that as part of last year's budget process. That was funding in the city's public safety aid that was allocated to the library to do this. We just haven't begun the project yet.

So, is that going to be public in this budget proposal? Cause I don't see where that budget item is. I don't see where the funding is from this year into going into next year.

Chair Jones, Council Member Bui, it is in this year's budget, and it's not in the capital budget. It's in the other the special funds of the city as I Madeline's nodding to me.

Okay. So we can just see where that's gonna be for 2026. Are you assuming that this project's gonna be completed within this year so we don't have to

Councilmember Bouie, the money will carry over until we spend Yes.

Thank you. That's what I was asking.

Yes. Thanks. Councilmember Coleman.

Thank you, Sheriff Jost. Thank you, Director Hartman. I'm excited about this presentation. Quick question on the Riverview Library funding gap. Just given what we might anticipate from the national economic headwinds over the next couple of years, do we expect that gap to grow or is $9,000,000 accounting for the consequences of tariffs and whatnot?

Chair Jones, Councilmember Coleman, that's a great question. That's our estimated amount. The project was originally budgeted for 7,700,000.0, but our we have uncovered as all things go, the costs are going up. So, that project is now a number of years away. So, we're estimating that's the cost. But it's nowhere near final.

Thank you.

Thanks, Councilwoman. I so just to add to that question, so are these gaps in, like, in $20.25 dollars, or are they in for $20.26 dollars or future dollars? Do you know?

Chair Jost, the gap for Riverview is in $20.25 dollars, but it is, again, just an estimate. Right? So we haven't, taken that project far enough to get the actual cost with our contractors and our architects. Okay. Sure. Thank you.

Councilor Maria.

Thanks, chair Joel. I just wanted to comment. This is really exciting to hear about Hayden Heights Library. So I there were so many people involved in this from staff, directors, elected officials, community members and also the friends too. So it's such a huge accomplishment. I would love to get an update on really like what the next plan is in terms of well, one, if the information is public yet. I'm sure it is because they're sharing it here, but public out to the community, and like what the next steps are for it. So I'll definitely follow-up with you about that.

Yeah, Chair Jones, Council Member Yang. This is new information to us, right? It's just as of two weeks ago, so our team is doing the planning. We already had that project take up to 100%, like, of construction drawings. So it is about as shovel ready as you can get, and still have to go through the city processes for procurement. That's the stage that we're at. As soon as we have any more information about an actual timeline is, we'll make sure to share it with your office.

Thank you.

I was asked to provide a budget recap of just of 2025. So, this is separate from the 2026 budget. Here are some things that happened with the 2025 library budget. So, we were able through our own resources to move one point o FTE, the library safety manager to our general fund. So some of you may recall and and actually it's written right here.

So fund two eleven, that's formally ARPA, that continues to fund for us our library safety specialists. That funding is secured, and it'll be spent all through 2026, but then we will have a budget gap in 2027. But one of those FTE is the library safety manager. We have now moved on on to the library general fund by repurposing a fund that we had still in our budget for library contracted security, which we haven't had now since we've moved to our library safety strategy. So we repurposed that to be able to get that onto the general fund.

You recall that in last year's budget, we eliminated one point o in public services as part of our budget reductions. That was through a vacancy. That is what's leading me now here to this recommendation that if we take any more FTE from libraries from public services that we have to have the library services impacted for the public. You all well know, and thank you for adding a $175,000 to the library materials budget. That was one time via the library fund balance, and we are doing a good job of spending that.

Also, over the last two years, money has been put into our budget for library safety infrastructure investments. Sharps containers in all locations have been completed. Our vapor monitor vapor monitors are currently in two restrooms two libraries, public restrooms, the Rondo Library and the Arlington Library. We've been delayed in expanding those to libraries just because of things like the digital security incident and other pieces. But the funding that we have allows us to expand to the other libraries, and we have found great success in the vapor monitors.

So we're pleased to let you know that. Our automatic door locking installation is currently in progress as a review of our camera system as well. As council member Bui indicated, we'll be presenting at the public safety committee couple of weeks, but I did wanna just give you one slide here as an overview of our library safety strategy. Our incidents This is this is the headline. Our incidents across library locations are on track for reduction in incidents over 24.

So a Thank you. That is entirely due to our library safety specialists and our library safety managers. You recall that when we first developed that work, was conceptual, but also it was based in community feedback. And, we surveyed our community in the 2023 about what safe library spaces look like to them, and we'll be coming back to them this fall with that same question. So, we can keep pace with what our community members want and need from our libraries.

Our library safety strategy has, as I mentioned, six library safety specialists. They're currently located at Rondo, George Latimer Central Library, Rice Street, and our Sunray Library. Each of our locations has a safety playbook which is like an emergency manual, but people actually use it. So it's we will have all locations completed by the end of this year. We're about three quarters of the way done.

So as you can imagine and and know, like getting that practice about where to actually stand and how to react in various situations is exactly the work that we need. Our library safety manager now has brought the majority of our safety training for staff in house. And so, we offer it on a monthly or a bimonthly basis. That's a significant Significantly more relevant to our staff than doing it every year. Right?

Or bringing somebody in periodically to do that. So, now that's a required part of our onboarding and something that refreshers are available, and in some cases, required for our staff to take. We, in 2026, we will fully launch restorative practices. As you recall, always the tension in our safety work is what is the line between behavior that is unacceptable and we need you to leave and that's the end of it. And, what is behavior that you've made a mistake and we wanna restore library access to That's a very fine line, but our library safety specialists do an incredible job with that.

But, restorative practices both for our staff and for our patrons will fully roll out in 2026. And for patrons that could look like coming back and doing some sort of accountability work. Our library safety specialists call them restorative chats. So, not necessarily a whole circle, but an opportunity to recognize the impact that your behavior had on the community of the library. You mentioned before, again we're thrilled to be partnering with Hallie Q Brown.

And, we'll present further library safety strategy information in September. Again, transforming libraries, Hamlin Midway Library's on time, it's on budget. We'll open by the 2020 We'll try to get that as even sooner than that, we'll let you know, but it's doing it's really exciting to watch that building come up. We've had great community feedback and reaction to that even when the street was closed. People were like, it's okay.

It's okay. As long as the building's still going up. I wanna direct you to a beautiful video that Stall Construction did with drones that showed the challenges of building on such a small city space, and I can send that out later. But that was, as you as you know, that that is one of the challenges of the sites and why this was really the only option to proceed. Because there wasn't any additional room to do anything differently.

So, that's really exciting. Hidden Heights underway. Our technology rich spaces and our play and learn spaces that are that is part of transforming libraries, those investments in all our libraries. Marion Park and Rice Street technology investments will be completed later this year. And, Sunray Library will be the first one to have spectacular play and learn space in 2026.

You remain familiar with much of the work that we have done together over the last few years, but just summarizing the creation of the substitute staffing pool, the restoration of library staff from ARPA in the post pandemic years, Sprockets budget moved from library to parks, and the library safety strategy. Last year was a great year for a new mobile library, and I just wanna point out that the vast majority of that money came from CDBG Cares and the Friends with very little general fund impact. Two very creative ways over the last two years to solve that library materials funding challenge. And, our Rondo Froggtown Loop launched this year. So, just a summary there.

Here is the slide that shows the exact amount of these reductions. Councilmember Johnson, you had asked in particular for that. And so here's the specific amounts of each of these reductions that I discussed on the first slide.

Council president Baker.

Thanks, chair Joe. So just to be clear, the point eight which is the reason for the reduction in hours Darlington is $87,000 That's correct. And the other repurposing of positions, reducing of vacant positions, attrition adjustments, sub staffing, none of those have an impact on services in terms of hours.

Well so attrition and substitute staffing, I don't predict that at this time, but I wanna just explain what the impacts could be. So reducing our substitute staffing budget means we're tighter staffed. So it means that we have less flexibility to sub behind an existing staff member if they were out suddenly or they were out for training or on vacation. So it it shrinks our capacity there. Attrition does the same.

So attrition, we did a lot of math. We think we can hold this amount of the attrition, but we will have to continue to see what it looks like in 2026. It could mean that we have to slow down our hiring. Right? Or it could mean we have to hold vacancies a little bit longer. That's some of the things that could impact our our staffing. And if it impacts our staffing, then it would impact public hours.

Thank you. Council member Coleman. Thank you, chair Jost. This might be a real one zero one question. But with the Halen Midway Library planning to open by the 2026, hopefully opening earlier, I'm just trying to drop my head around what that means in terms of library staffing and have additional funds that would need to be spent if we do have the opportunity to open that earlier and how that works with the library general fund.

Good question. Chair Jones, council member Coleman, the FTE that's allocated to Hamlin is has been repurposed to other locations. So whatever the FTE was is now working in a variety of different locations. And so when Hamlin reopens, we'll pull from those locations to be able to have the staffing for Hamlin. Also, while Hamlin has been closed this summer in particular, we expanded the hours for Merriam Park. So we would we would not continue to have those expanded hours for Merriam Park. We would move those staffing resources to Hamlin.

Just

for clarification, did we add any additional safety specialists this budget cycle or no, we did not?

Chair Jones, Council Member Johnson, no, you did not. Or it's the same amount as it's always been.

Okay. And then can you just clarify again how many safety specialists do we have?

We have six safety specialists and one safety manager. And the safety manager is the position that is now on the general fund.

Okay. Thank you.

There's some proposed changes in special funds as well. I think I've highlighted most of those with the exception of the MELSA funds, which are the state regional basic library system support funds that come to each library system. That has increased due to an increase in the overall state budget for that. And, so you can see here the increase in the funds funding for the Read Braven library materials is increasing the amount that we have budgeted in special funds. This is a history of budget to actual in the general fund back to 2021, showing our budget, our actual spending, and then the variance.

The last line I'll point out is a year to date for 2025. So you might notice a large number there, and that is normal. I think you'll see that from a lot of my colleagues in the depart and from other departments because there are charges that come in towards the end of the year. Again, a summary summary of our first spending from 2023 actuals '24 and the 2026 proposed and then the change from 2025. A nice chart a nice chart. Thank you to my colleagues and OFS for just demonstrating that on the line graph.

Council President Nacre has a question. Thank you.

Thanks, Chair Joe. So just to be clear looking at this, I think it is clear, there are no spending increases in the general fund. There's no additions. There are only reductions.

Chair Jost, council member Nacre, there are only reductions. Okay.

Thank you. Chair Johnson.

And thank you for the slide too. I thought it was really helpful when I was going through and reviewing it. And I know that you were an attendant this morning and kinda heard a little bit of the conversation around the general the special fund two eleven. And I know that there's, like, an allocation here for both the Holly Hugh Brown lease and the going back Contract or security. Then the security piece.

And I had asked this question as well from Madeline earlier, but just to get clarity again. So the changes from last year to this year, there's 97,000 involved. So some of that funding and I guess I'm looking at Madeline, but also like looking at you director. This fund in particular, I'm you know, very transparently I don't love how that's being funded. I am supportive of both of those things.

I don't like that it's coming out the general fund and new funding that was never really discussed with the council in exchange for some of the allocations that the council department received. I think so I just want to be transparent about that, but also seeing if all the other alternatives were explored for those purposes because I find those to be really important. The lease as well as the security pieces. And I'm just wondering like there were no other ways that that could have been funded other than the government general special projects fund?

Yeah. Chair Jones, Councilmember Johnson, I worked super closely with Madeline and my colleagues on OFS to bring forward those as opportunities. And we certainly didn't have the resources within the library, neither in the special funds or the general funds. So I look to my colleagues in OFS to be our subject matter experts about where funding like that could come from. And do wanna point out that that's also one time funding, right? So it has different absence of tails than some things that would need to be funded on an ongoing basis in the general fund.

Yeah. I think relying on our special fund for things that I think to counsel Vice President Kim's earlier point, on stuff out of the special fund that are supposed to be ongoing gives me angst every time. And so I don't necessarily don't really transparently, I don't love that. I think that if you have situations where the construction and stuff goes on into additional years, you know, relying on special funds and one time funding and multiple instances to support the library in different ways, I just don't think it's a very wise financial decision in the long run and then places it in a space where you have to roll over things. We've seen significant decrease in our safety specialists but like having one position on the general fund and having the rest like not on the general fund in a way just doesn't allow us to plan ahead in ways that could be like sustaining them over time.

So I I I just transparently, really don't like using the special fund for those two options because I know that they are very important and would have probably preferred to see them come out of another additional source or to be explored elsewhere being that that funding is not necessarily going to be ongoing and it's supposed to be extended by the end of the year of 2026. And so just knowing that that's not necessarily something that can be relied upon, I do hope that that's like, you know, taken into consideration and as a helpful nod. I think for special fund two eleven for any departments that'll be presenting on that, If we continue to have projects, positions, leases, and things that would require ongoing things put into the Special Fund or relying on ARPA to do that, it doesn't seem to be sustainable over the long term. So that's just my 2¢ on that. But appreciate the graphic and it's really clear to understand.

Looks like Ms. Vigil has a comment.

Yeah. Chair Jost, council member if I could just add one piece of clarity there. There are many places where we used American Rescue Plan funds to support things that had been funded with the general fund, and then those have been moving back. The library safety specialist was a pilot program that was made possible by having those funds. So it was not one of those situations where they moved to ARP and then we have to figure out how to get them back.

They are new because we got ARP money. I think, you know, we continue to watch how well that's going and look forward to working with Director Hartman and her team in the future to figure out what options we have for funding that ongoing. But it was a pilot program made possible by those one time funds. Otherwise, would not have been something that would have been quite as manageable with just library general funds. Okay.

Wanna thank you. Here's a summary of FTEs over the last few years. You heard my colleague Madeline, budget manager Mitchell, talk this morning about those library safety specialists FTE that the money was here in the library special fund, but the FTE were not reflected. So as you look to 2026, that's the increase in the FTE that you see there. That doesn't mean the money the sustainability of that has been solved.

It just means the FTE has now is now showing up in our budget. And there, you'll see the also the reduction of 1.3 FTE from the reductions I discussed earlier. I was asked to provide a list of the vacant positions in the library. And you can see that we have a number for hiring underway. Made an offer and had an offer accepted on custodian two. LCSA ones and LCSA twos are front facing staff that would help you check out your book. They would do our shelving. They would help you with your accounts. Library associates are more of the folks that do our programming and our reference questions in libraries. So, we have that hiring underway.

Some of those positions have just become vacant. Others have been vacant since June, and that's related to just making sure that we follow our civil service rules to make sure that there aren't any internal promotional candidates, and then review the eligibility list. So, that's where we are there. I just had a resignation of our community library manager at Dayton's Bluff, so we'll begin that process now. I think we've talked at length about Fund two eleven, but I did wanna just point out there's some information about what we are funding through Fund two eleven here in addition to the library safety strategy.

We also have a library modernization project underway that will be completed by the 2026.

Council President Baker.

Thanks, Chair Jost. I think this is skipping ahead to the questions

and discussion slide. Who's next? Okay.

There you go. Because we always wait for the questions and discussion. Director Hartman, first of I just want to say thank you for your presentation, which adhered to our new budget presentation template. I really appreciate there's tons of good stuff in the appendix. And I think in previous years, we would have seen all of that sort of front loaded. And then finally get to the budget and we'd have no time left to talk about it. So I really appreciate that. And as you saw, your executive summary was so successful that it got all of our questions to be asked

on the

first slide. So I think going forward, we just need to remember that there are more slides up to the executive summary. Two questions. One, as you know, our library board resolution commits to keeping collections purchasing power year over year equal or increasing. I noticed that in the appendix you talk about the need to keep purchasing power equal to last year would be to have to go up to 225,000 in library collections this year.

I just want make sure my math is right that that's two twenty five additional we would need. The proposal is to cut 65 and the friends are purporting to be able to not purporting are going to be able to find 40 and thank goodness that they are. So does that leave us at two fifty as the gap if we were to follow our commitment as a board?

Chair Jones, council member Nacare, I wanna make sure I answer this carefully. The number here that's on slide 28 is inclusive of the commitment that the Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library have made for $40,000 of the $65,000 cut that we would be taking. So that is the accurate number. I'm looking over at Josh who gave me the number. Yes. He's nodding.

So the two twenty five is the gap that is the amount we would need to find if given the proposed reduction and the proposed 40 to keep it at or above last year's purchasing power.

Yes. Thank you for saying that so Okay.

Thank you. My math was wrong. I'm glad I asked. And then my second question with permission of the chair. What is the library fund balance right now? And what is the fund balance as a percentage of the library fund general fund?

Chair Jones, council member Nacre, I don't have that information in front of me today. I'd look to my OFS colleagues or we can provide it later.

Okay. Look forward to that follow-up. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Cheerio Johnson. I think so obviously, don't expect this to be necessarily answered today. I preface that with knowing that it's a kind of little somewhat of a loaded question, but something that I hope that we began to talk about in 2026. It appears that the library material pieces have continued to be an ongoing problem around being able to make sure we're funding them year after year. And just looking at the slide that you provided, I know that some of the difference has been supplemented by other funds, even just having the Cultural Star request in 2024.

The differences that I see here just significantly on the materials budget each year. I'm wondering how to get ahead of that. And I'd really love to know you know, how what does it look like to make sure that we're investing in our library collections and our material budgets to be able to be proactively planning for it. I think this is a piece for me that I you know, another one of those things like transparently, I don't love to see. And also being able to know that you know, in my ward we have really high number we have higher numbers and as far as like people coming to Sunray Library.

We have folks that do go to the Eaton's Bluff Library, folks that cross board lines and go to Hazel Park and to Arlington Hills as well. And I think the usage in some of our areas is not the issue, but I think what we're able to provide continues to remain important to me. And so I just would love to know, like, let's let's say we don't we're not able to fill the gap this year. That puts us in a hole of 225,000. So as we head into next year, that gap I anticipate growing.

And I hope that at some point and welcome the conversation from staff around what would it take to catch up. And I think a perfect example of this separately being able to be on the waterboard briefly has been we started to talk about that regarding our capital investments and regarding also just how we proactively are responding with our fees. And so I think that that was actually a pretty helpful conversation to understand and what it took to catch up. And I think with some of our resources and how we think about transitioning and how it fits into you know transitioning from our special funding to what goes over to general fund and I know you're having those conversations. But I think it would be really helpful to also be clued into like like what do our libraries look like if they have their full library collections in five to ten years of you know, like the vision for our libraries where people come to do life like and I think that that is something that just from a opportunity and value standpoint, I agree with so many of my colleagues when it comes to you know, the hardest thing for me I feel to see continue to be taken away as a resources for our kids in our community.

And so libraries for me rec centers, all those things are really important in Ward 7 especially. You know, we've had many years of that. It's disappointing to see some of our e site library sometimes on the on the dock for that or even just like anytime we have to close our libraries or reduce hours, like, I'm gonna be like, what happened? So it'd be really nice to know like if we had everything in the sun, what the five years plan would be, ten year plan, just to get back on the track so we're not always coming from a gap to fill here. I I think it's really important and I know that materials are gonna continue to increase so in cost.

So I appreciative to the friends who are being able to you know supplement some of the gap here, but I know that we may need to come up with a sustainable strategy overall. So I hope to be a part of those conversations in the future.

Chair Jones Councilmember Johnson, just to respond to that briefly. Thank you. And also, I just want to sort of position where the Saint Paul Public Library has been in the times that we're in. We don't have the resources at this time. Right? To go beyond sort of figuring it out year by year. Right? And I'm not suggesting that that's like the only way forward or the right way forward. We have a challenge. As everything gets more expensive, that includes library materials, that includes library staffing, that includes construction, everything is increasing.

So the reason you see that hole to fill for library materials is we've because the costs increase at 15% every year. So if we want our budget to give us the same purchasing power year over year, there we are. Right? And thus far, the last two years have found one time funding sources. So I look forward to continuing that conversation, and your point is very well taken.

Libraries serve lots of different needs, and some people and some libraries are checking out more books, and others are coming in to use more computers, and others are using the meeting rooms. So that continues to be a really tricky balancing act, but one that I think we do really successfully, and one that we're continued to con to continue to make sure that our libraries are as relevant and spaces of belonging. And I appreciate this this body for understanding that.

You. Councilwoman Pullman. Thank you. Recognizing that I'm asking a second question about a library that does not yet fully exist. If we are able to open the Hamlin Midway Library in 2020 looking at the safety specialist numbers and recognizing that given the needs of Midway, it is likely that we would want some additional support at that library. Would that be feasible with the current number of full time employees or would we need to be expanding that number in order to provide that additional support at the new library?

Chair Jones, Councilmember Coleman, that's an excellent question. My team and I are looking at that right now recognizing that we would need a safety specialist at Hamlin. We don't have that in the budget right now. But we do have some time to keep talking about it, and so I'd welcome further conversations about that.

Excellent. Thank you. Any

other questions from board members? Well, I have a couple of questions and comments. I just want to thank you, Director Hartman. I want to thank my library board members for all their really thoughtful questions and for the discussion today and all the staff that's here. I just want to kind of highlight a few things that I heard.

I think we are facing a lot of challenges, and I understand that every department was asked to make a cut and those are really challenging decisions. I think what I'm hearing from my colleagues and what I also agree with is there's a lot of programs that we provide we'd like to see be ongoing like our Read Brave program, keeping up with our library collections, our library safety strategy, and doing what we can as we're thinking into the future about providing ongoing sources of funding for those ongoing programs. And also one thing that I'm thinking about, and I do have an ask of you and Ms. Mitchell. You know, this morning we as I mentioned before, we heard that the cuts that are being made to every department I know this is our first presentation were proportional to that department's proportion of the general fund.

And so what I would like to know is, in some departments we're maybe at their target, above or below, if you guys could share with us and this can be later, you can follow-up where the library department is being above or below those numbers. I kind of did a guess and I feel like, I don't know, I don't want to say, but maybe we're near that. But that would really help us get an understanding of what types of opportunities there are, especially as we hear from the other departments to consider any modifications to the library budget. And so I'd definitely be interested in those numbers if you have them. I will say that even with the challenges we're facing, I see a lot of really great things in this budget.

I'm really excited about the CIB investments in transforming libraries and the commitments from our city to fund those projects. I think I I feel like we're in a much better position than we were last year to see the transforming libraries projects through, so I'm I'm really excited about that. I'm looking forward to the the updates at the Rondo Library and the opportunity to be able to move into the Hallie Q. Brown Center is just really fantastic, and I know we're gonna be able to continue to serve the residents in that community, and then they'll be able to come back to an even better Rondo library. And then I also just wanna make sure that we thank the friends of the library.

We have Beth here today. You heard throughout our presentation that in a really challenging year where we are having to make some cuts, that the friends are stepping up this year to really help us with our library materials and the Read Brave program. And we really appreciate your support, so I wanna thank you all for that. And at the same time, we will still be looking forward to what are ways that we can find sources of funding to continue these services, but we are just so grateful that they've stepped in to help us provide that continuity next year. So thank you so much. And I guess if there's any other questions or comments? Well, with nothing else to come before us, we are adjourned.