In an effort to shift e-book costs into the operating budget, the Williamsburg Regional Library is proposing a $6.2 million budget that increases funding for collections by more than $43,000.
The proposed fiscal year 2015 budget earmarks a total of $480,000 for collections, a 10.01 percent increase from last year in order to continue its e-books service and add new e-books titles to the collection.
Friends of the Williamsburg Regional Library, a group of volunteers who promote, sponsor programs and fund grants for the library, have offered grants to cover the costs of launching and then maintaining the e-books collection since fiscal year 2012. The proposed budget would move the cost burden to the operating fund in an effort to “regularize expenditures” for the e-books collection.
“We have been experimenting with e-books for several years now,” said WRL Director Genevieve Owens in her budget presentation to Williamsburg’s City Council on Monday. “They are becoming a very regular part of our collection now, and increasingly heavily used and so we’re eager to account for those expenditures in an ongoing operational way rather than special grants.”
From July 2013 to January 2014, users downloaded 48,050 items from the library’s digital collection of audiobooks, e-books, magazines and videos.
The $6,220,538 proposed budget asks the City of Williamsburg to transfer $12,113 more than in fiscal year 2014. The 1.48 percent increase would put the city’s contribution at a total of $831,619. WRL is asking for a 1.72 percent increase in funds from James City County, bringing the county’s total to $4,395,404. York County is asked for the same amount it contributed last year, $536,553.
The increased funding from localities would largely cover any lost revenue — such as the expected decrease in lost books or library fines as e-books, which do not generate that revenue for libraries, become more popular — and the higher expenses predicted for e-books and health care in 2015.
WRL also anticipates a 7.1 percent rise in health care costs, budgeting $39,343 more than last year for the expense. With state and federal funding for health care in 2015 still uncertain, Owens cautioned the number could change.
Because the library has replaced a number of longtime employees with new hires, WRL expects to save about $16,500 on salaries and wages over the next year.
“We’re bringing in some new staff people at lower rates of compensation than their predecessors, but that’s a very natural evolution and not something I would have you take in any other way,” Owens said.
Any other changes to compensation would come from the James City County Board of Supervisors, as library employees are paid through the county’s budget. Library staff received a 3 percent raise last year, the first pay raise for county employees in five years. Acting County Administrator Doug Powell has not yet released his proposed budget for 2015.
The City Council, with Mayor Clyde Haulman absent, voiced its support for the library, offering no objections to the library’s proposed budget.
City Manager Jack Tuttle is expected to release his proposed budget for fiscal year 2015 at the end of the month.
