The Windsor Public Library board has sketched out its spending plan for 2018 and beyond.
The library board approved its proposed capital and operating budgets for the coming year, as well as its long-term spending plans through 2023. The library sketches out its financial blueprint for five years in advance each year.
The operating budget for 2018 is over $8.3-million. This accounts for over $233,000 in increases put in for the hiring of additional staff for its popular Tech Hub program, a part-time accounting clerk and a temporary financial analyst.
Library CEO Kitty Pope says the next step is taking the package to the city for approval, and she is confident it will go through.
"They will now move ahead to city council," says Pope. "City council will ultimately review all the budgets. We know that that's mid-December and then we will be moving forward."
The budget increase from 2017 includes $33,000 in funding for staffing in the library's popular Book Buddy program. Pope says a change in the literacy grant the library receives from the province of Ontario made the change necessary.
"The Windsor Public Library board has been very supportive of literacy, whether it's deaf literacy, or it's adult literacy, and so they will continue to support that program," says Pope.
Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens, the board chairman, had earlier in the year expressed a desire for a new Central Library building downtown. The current building on Ouellette Ave. was built in 1972. However, the five-year budget calls for spending $400,000 on improvements to the current main branch for 2019, and a consultant looking into whether a new building is desirable has not completed its work.
Pope says they are always trying to plan ahead.
"We know that by 2019 or 2020, the HVAC and the furnace in this old building is going to have to be refurbished," says Pope. "We put a placeholder in there so that if that time comes, there will be enough money in the budget to do it."
