ST. PAUL – During the County of St. Paul council meeting on May 13, a delegation from the St. Paul Municipal Library and the Friends of the Library requested council reverse its decision to cut $30,000 from library services.
While the County’s library board, which allocates library services funding, will officially decide allocations on May 30, the St. Paul Municipal Library expects the majority of the cut will be directed toward the St. Paul-based library, as other libraries within the County rely more heavily on County funding.
In 2024, the St. Paul Municipal Library received $46,000 worth of funding from the County of St. Paul and they are now expecting the funding to go down to roughly $16,000.
About 28 per cent of library card users live within County limits, including 18 per cent who specifically identify locations they live in, such as Ashmont, said Eunhye Cho, library manager, during the delegation with the County of St. Paul council.
According to Cho, the $30,000 cut is roughly an 11 per cent cut to the library’s overall funding, which would affect the library’s programming and staffing. This could lead to reduced library hours and program cancellations.
Staff wages and restrictions
Cho acknowledges there are concerns regarding library staff wages remaining stagnant. She said the library cannot increase wages due to increased operational costs, and library funding did not increase in the past few years.
Terry Siemers, treasurer of Friends of the Library, was also in attendance at the delegation and asked council to reverse its decision, explaining the Friends of the Library's support is limited by the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis’ (AGLC) policies, where the group acquires some of its funding.
While other community organizations may use their funding for operational costs, Siemers said, “There are special rules for libraries.” She said Friends of the Library can help fund initiatives, or pay for furniture, books, or computers, but it cannot fund operational costs.
Cho said as far as the AGLC is concerned, when it comes to libraries, municipalities should be paying for any capital projects or wages. “That’s their fundraising rules.”
Cho also requested council provide an official rationale behind the cut, so she could communicate it with stakeholders and the public.
Misunderstanding
During the delegation, County of St. Paul Coun. Darrell Younghans sought clarification regarding an email County council received earlier this year, which apparently indicates that Cho told a resident that the library does not require funding from the County.
Cho said, “There is no truth [to that],” before explaining what she believes led to the misunderstanding.
According to Cho, a resident previously approached her regarding a concern about an event held at the library, the Royal Storytime.
She said she replied to that resident, stating, “If the County decides to cut the funding because the library is holding this one program in the name of inclusion . . . we will work with the County at that point, and you cannot threaten the library's funding into censoring children's literacy programs.”
The resident took that as meaning the “library doesn't want [the County’s] money. That's the only way I can interpret how that has come about,” said Cho.
Coun. Maxine Fodness said she understands Cho’s conversation with the resident was fairly heated, which may have led to an inaccurate depiction or recollection of the conversation.
Reserve funds
Cho also addressed a concern regarding the library’s $30,000 in reserve funding, which she believes led to the County cutting library services.
According to Cho, the library typically has enough in the bank until May to fund operational costs and usually receives money from the County and the Town by March or April.
But funding delays can happen, she said, and if the library does not receive funding by March or April to fund operational costs in June, it would rely on the $30,000 in reserves.
“It's our cushion for any funding delays. We just put it into short term or redeemable GIC just so we can generate some interest in it,” said Cho.
Fodness asked that if the library was to hypothetically receive the $46,000 from the County again this year, “at the end of 2025, would you still have $30,000 . . . according to your budget?”
Cho responded, “If something was to happen, it may get used.”
Fodness replied, “If something was to happen and you didn’t have the $30,000, that’s what municipalities are for.” Fodness believes the library should approach the Town and County for help in cases of emergencies.
Coun. Dale Hedrick also said it was not fair for the library to blame the County for cutting services because of the reduced funding, suggesting the library has the option to use its existing reserves to mitigate the impact of the funding reduction.
“That is not fair to say that, because you have $30,000 there that you could use . . . So, it's not the County's fault that you have to cut funding or cut services,” said Hedrick.
Fodness, during an earlier discussion, also said the library could have handled the $30,000 cut to library services differently.
She suggested instead of blaming the County and causing dissension within the community, the library could have said that it would use the $30,000 to cover the shortfall since the County’s library board has not yet decided on how to divvy the $70,000 allocation set aside in the budget.
Cho asked council if they would want to see the library shut down, if a funding delay occurred and the library no longer had its reserve funds.
“Do you want us to shut down the library?” she questioned.
Fodness replied, stating, “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Cho then noted that, “It happened this year,” referring to the library already using $10,000 of its reserve funding for 2025. “It happened in 2020 and it happened a few times in the past,” she added.
Cho previously provided Lakeland This Week with an example of a funding delay that occurred in 2020, where the expected money from the County’s library board did not come in by March 2020.
The library was able to pay for operational costs, including staff wages for March and April but would not have been able to pay for operating costs in May if staff had not been temporarily laid off due to pandemic restrictions.
Basically, the library would have been shut down in May 2020 if staff had not been laid off due to pandemic restrictions.
“Twice in the last five years,” there were funding delays, said Cho.
County of St. Paul Reeve Glen Ockerman suggested the possibility of changing the date of when funding is allocated to libraries, and Fodness said that would not be a problem.
Council made a motion to accept the delegation’s presentation as information and noted that more discussions will take place on May 30 when the County’s library board decides on specific allocations for funding.
*This story was corrected to reflect the number of County of St. Paul residents who use the St. Paul Municipal Library
