Past Year Financially Sound for Library

What looked to be a difficult year financially turned out well for the Morris Area Public Library.

Unaudited figures reviewed at Wednesday’s board meeting showed the library had income of $717,258 and expenses of $636,000 for the fiscal year, which ended June 30, leaving a surplus of about $81,000. Actual income exceeded the budget by $24,000.

“These are unofficial figures, but we ended up in good shape, with revenues exceeding expenditures,” Library Director Pam Wilson said.

With the drop in assessed valuation due to the closing of Collins Station, the board last year approved some cuts, including a slight reduction in the number of hours the library is open each week.

Wilson noted interest income has gone up with the higher rates. Interest income of $24,000 exceeded the budget of $10,000.

Wilson reported the library received its first installment of property taxes in July, $291,600, about $9,000 over the first installment last year.

Members of the Finance Committee will meet this month and present the tentative budget at the August meeting.

The library’s costs to maintain the on-line circulation system will increase about $1,000, to $10,554.

Wilson explained the library officially switched July 1 from the old Heritage Trail system to the Prairie Area Library System (PALS). PALS includes 83 libraries in the northern one-third of Illinois, excluding most of the suburbs.

PALS charges each library a fee of $2,981. In addition, the fees are based on three cents per circulation item, 37 cents for each user and four cents for each item in the collection.

Based on this formula, the Morris library’s charge would be $14,554, however, the system agreed to reduce the charge by $4,000 for the first year.

Wilson said the library, which has been paying $800 per month, will now pay $2,638 per quarter.

Paylocity will handle the library’s payroll, including direct deposit, at a cost of $1,400 per year. Wilson said Paylocity had by far the lowest price of the three proposals she received.

The annual Catherine Hatch-er Memorial program will be a slide presentation on King Tut at 2 p.m. on Aug. 27. Jeff Mishur will present the program and there will be a related craft program for children.

On Sept. 7, the library will sponsor a bus trip to the King Tut exhibit. It is sold out.

Only about 10 seats remain for the Oct. 8 bus trip to the Conklin Barn Theater and 15 seats remain for the March 1 trip to “The King and I,” at Drury Lane.

Board Member Ruth Cheshareck reported the family of Marian Carlson donated a magnifying viewer, called a Smart View, to the library. It is currently near the magazines.

Wilson reported 447 children have signed up for the summer reading club, including 304 school age and 143 pre-school. Another 71 are participating in the Teen Connection Summer Reading Club.

In addition, adults are participating in a summer reading club. Mini reviews are submitted for each book read and there is a weekly drawing from those reviews.

Board members Judy Watters, Carson Robinson and Theresa Panzica were absent.