Un-staffed libraries a response to municipal underfunding

Jeff Green | Dec 15, 2021

The Kingston Frontenac Public Library (KFPL) is in a bind. In order to survive and thrive it needs to be more available in locations where there are people who expect the library to be open more than minimal hours.

Currently, only two branches in the City of Kingston are open 60 hours a week or more.

But the City of Kingston, which controls the library budget (Frontenac County pays in as well but Kington City Council decides how much) has informed all of the agencies that they fund to present them with budgets that go up no more than 2% each year.

This has been the practice for a few years now, and Kingston City Council seems to like it.

Laura Carter, the KFPL Head Librarian and Chief Executive Officer put it, says that the 2% increase is eaten up each year by cost increases. It leaves the library with no way to augment its services, and no way to expand branch hours in growing communities.

But, if there were no staff at the branches during the extra hours, there would be no added cost.

So, the staff-less library idea is being pursued.

There are up front costs involved, about $100,00 in the case of a proposal to expand the hours of the Pittsburgh branch in East Kingston from 38 to 60.

Like other municipal councils, the City of Kingston is generally receptive to requests for one-time funding because they can always find a few dollars for a one-time expense ($100,000 is pocket change in a budget in the hundreds of millions).

Although the Pittsburgh branch is the pilot site for staff-less branches, the busiest rural branches, Sydenham and Sharbot Lake, could follow if the Pittsburgh experiment is a success.

The savings from a staff-less branch are not that high, the salary of one librarian per hour. It cost about $40,000 per year, at the most, so the payback on the $100,000 is 2.5 years, but there will be ongoing maintenance costs for the equipment of about $10,000, and the equipment will eventually need to be replaced and/or upgraded, so it is really a 4 or 5 year pay back.

This all leads to a question. Is it really a savings to eliminate one hour of wages for every hour of extra service by investing in all of this equipment, establishing all the necessary protocols, and creating additional labour at the branch where the staff-less branch is being observed at all times on a video screen.

Maybe it is, but it can’t be that much of a savings when all costs are included.

Not all of the agencies that the City Funds are as stuck on the 2% as the library is.

The Kingston Police are under the same 2% scenario as the library is. But in each of the last two years they have come to council with a 3.5% increase, each time explaining how COVID costs have made 3.5% the best they could do.

It seems that the library has less leverage than the police

A quick look at the numbers shows that Kingston collected $240 million from its residents in 2021, up $10 million (4%) from 2020.

The City announced that the increase was only 1.6%, so they must include some assessment growth or some other factors in their calculations.

But the rules they are imposing on the library are that the total budget request be kept to 2%, so it makes sense to apply that logic to the way they report their overall tax increase, and they don’t seem to have stayed within that limit.

Kingston City Council seems to be content to let the library take the flak from the public and their own unions instead of allowing for a moderate budget increase to respond to growth in demand for library services.

Because of the financial relationship between the City of Kingston and Frontenac County, the refusal to provide any funding for service growth in the library operating budget could result in staff-less library hours in Sharbot Lake and Sydenham before too long. And Frontenac County Council are not going to complain because they also like keeping limits on how much money they pay towards library operations.

Technology has been a great addition to the KFPL. It has brought an online catalogue, ebooks, virtual programming. All great additions that have been particularly useful for rural library patrons.

But staff-less branches don’t really add any value. But once they are in place, they will be the go-to method for increasing hours of service in the future.