Library Board - Regular Meeting

Library board is set up to order. Roll call please.

Bouley? Here. Coleman? Here. Johnson?

Kim? Here. Naker? Here. Yang? Here. Chair Jones? Here. Six present, one absent, one excused being Chair Johnson, or I'm sorry, Council Member Johnson. The first item on the agenda is minutes twenty five forty seven approving 11/01/2025 library board minutes.

Alright, I'll take a motion from Council President Nacre to approve the library board minutes. Is there any discussion? All those in

favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Six in favor, zero opposed. The minutes are adopted. The next item up on for discussion is resolution 25 dash eighteen sixty two, library board resolution adopting 2026 budget and requesting property tax financing.

And I will turn it over to director Hartman to say a few things about the library budget that we're adopting this year.

Chair Jost, members of the library board, thanks for your continued support for the library this year in difficult budget year. I've appreciated the opportunity to stay in conversation with you and to do what we can to make sure that we have community access to libraries. So so a few additions to the original proposed budget that I proposed the mayor's proposed budget in September. I know you heard just as much as I did about how important library hours and open libraries are to our community members. And so, appreciate this budget reflecting adding back in the point eight library associate which will allow us to keep the same regular hours at our Arlington Hills library.

Thank you so much for doing that. It means a lot to our staff. It means a lot to me. And I know most importantly, means a lot to our community. So thank you for that.

I also really appreciate the continued work on the library materials budget. As you've heard from us several times, the cost of our library materials continues to go up based on ebook formulas and some other things. And we wanna make sure that as we build our library collections throughout our city that they represent our community. That our materials come in different languages and different formats. So that folks can come into our our buildings and find materials that reflect their life and their experiences.

And they can do that online as well. So I wasn't exactly sure where we were with that amount. But I know we'll I know Councilman President Naecker will speak to that, but I wanna appreciate I wanna appreciate that. And I also want to recognize that libraries like other city departments will have some reductions in upcoming 2026. Those are reflected here the as same as they are in our proposed budget.

So, we will do our best in the library to continue to provide excellent service to our community members and be an equitable intentional employer while we reduce some other expenses in order to keep the city budget and the library budget on track. So thank you for the opportunity to do that. I also want to take the opportunity to speak to some additional funding that the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library are adding to our library budget in 2026 in recognition of a particularly challenging budget time. The friends will be paying for our read brave program.

We're shifting that out of the general fund, so that takes some burden off of the city budget. As you know, they're gonna help us make up that gap in library materials with an additional collection support of $40,000. You all know, they are continuing to support us with the private portion of our transforming libraries initiative, which is supporting renovations and new libraries of three well loved, well used libraries. As well as technology rich and play and learn investments in all of our locations. And that's $10,000,000.

So I don't I don't I just wanna make sure I put that on the list. That's that's huge. Right? That's huge. That's more more private support than the city has ever had coming in for libraries.

And, the biggest campaign the Friends have run-in support of libraries. And, I would be remiss if I didn't recognize that the Friends also do annual giving to the library of eight, you know, $800,000 a year. And, that is year after year after year, Helping us support youth and family programming, staff development, community services, local location specific activities, as well as read brave. So, I just wanted to highlight that and recognize that, and happy to take any questions about where we ended up with the budget.

All right. I will turn over to my colleagues if anyone has any questions or comments about our library budget. Council President Baker.

Thanks, Chojost. Well, thanks so much to you for your leadership on this budget. It's really it's exciting to be at this point. Could not be more thrilled that we were able to restore some of the critical services that you were speaking to, Director Hartman. I think all of us, when we heard those cuts proposed in the original budget, kind of felt our stomach sink and our heart sink at the thought of losing those services that our residents depend on.

And due to real, I would say innovative thinking in terms of resources and also belt tightening, we were able to restore those hours, keep our purchasing power constant in our library materials budget which is something that is such a priority for us and something that I think is the least we can do to show our appreciation for the generous contributions of the Friends to that and more. We were able to get to this budget that I think is really a win all across the board. So just real kudos to everyone who's been involved. Thank you, Council President. Anyone else? Councilor O'Reagher.

Thanks, Chair Giles. I would like to echo what Council President Yu mentioned earlier. I'm really grateful to the council here for your support on restoring the position to make sure that we don't have any cuts to ours at Arlington Hills Library. And you all know that this is an area where there's so much need in our communities. And so to have these cuts, I mean there are very drastic impacts from kids not having places to go on, get on a computer and get access to Wi Fi to do printing.

And so it's more than just a public space for people to be. It's where people connect and people have the most dire services that they need to be able to do what they need for school or for work and much more. So very grateful to your support for this. And director you were talking, I just couldn't help but notice but that Arlington Hills Library is also the space where recently it was so close to the ICE incident that took place in Ward 6 and there were very drastic impacts to what happened there. As we as a counselor here are trying to save hours for our library, there are also ways in which many factors came into play to make our place here which is one of the most safest places for kids and families, one of the most unwelcoming spaces to be.

And so I am so worried about that and concerned about it and something I know that for the council members here or commissioners here, we don't ever want to see a repeat like that happen again. So it just really pushes me to think about what we as leaders, how we can connect with our directors, our staff members to make sure that we have collective plans in place so that we continue making libraries a place where families want to come to, they feel safe about coming to and they don't have to worry about even instances like ICE maybe one day stepping into our libraries trying to take families away. And so that is something I'm really committed to and I just can't again say enough how grateful I am to everybody's commitment here to our libraries and I really want to say thank you to the friends of Saint Paul Public Libraries. They have stepped up year after year to support our libraries, our communities here and we really can't do this work without them. So again thank you to all of them and their supporters.

Thank you, Councilmember Yang. Anyone else have a comment? Councilmember Bowie.

Thank you. Chair Giles, I just wanted to also echo some of the comments from my colleagues. I appreciate your leadership and just really ushering us forward through this budget process and let's, you know, have an opportunity to use this library board as opportunity to get our information and updates. I wanna say thank you, director Hartman, as we just been navigating, you know, a lot of the demands from the community, but as well as making sure that we have our services available, particularly, you know, not only to our community, but in our, you know, busy corridors as well too. I want to just say I am happy that we were able to secure funding to ensure that we there aren't any reductions in hours.

I am also very happy the proactive efforts to ensure that we secured funding for Hallie Q. Brown and that showed up in our budget. I know that's going be adopted later on in our HRA or city council meeting. But I just want to just, you know, say, you know, thank you for remaining, you know, committed, remaining transparent, and remaining accountable, particularly around like our process and just making sure that this library board also can learn as much as possible around what the process is in the day to day operations of running our libraries and making sure that they're welcoming and inclusive for our community. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Councilor Bui. Any other comments from my colleagues about the library budget? Great. I'll just say I'll echo everything that my colleagues said. I am so excited about our library budget again this year. I really appreciate all the work of the friends. I mean, we're going to be moving forward in the transforming libraries projects in such a really great position relative to where we were last year. And we're going be building the Hamlin Midway Library. It's going to open next we are building the Hamlin Midway Library. I've seen it.

It's going up. And it's going to be done next year. So we're really excited about that and to see all of our other projects through. I again just am really appreciative of my colleagues for helping us find a way to restore the hours at the Arlington Hills library. I think that being able to go to the library is something our residents really, really value when they think about what it is that matters to them in our city is being able to go into our libraries, whether it's to check out a book or use a computer.

And every hour that you take away from that, no matter how many people it is, it really impacts impacts those folks greatly. So I'm so happy to see that. And I also just really appreciate my colleagues and council president Nacre in finding a way that we could restore our library collections to be keeping up with what we know the libraries need. So I'm very excited about our budget this year and, you know, looking forward to to all we'll do in 2026 with with this budget. And thank you again to you, director Hartman, for all your help and your leadership.

So with that, I will take a motion from council vice president Kim to adopt this budget in utilizing our version two as amended. And I will take that motion from council vice president Kim. So all in favor say aye.

Aye. Anyone opposed? Six in favor, zero opposed. It's adopted as amended. Correct. Awesome.

Alright. Well, we are at the end of our agenda. This is our last meeting of the year for December. So I just, again, wanna thank all my colleagues for all their participation in the library board. I wanna, again, thank you, director Hartman and the friends and all of our staff just for another great year. And we will see you again in January with nothing else to come before us. We are adjourned.