Faced with continued declines in state support, the Schlow Centre Region Library trustees are weighing a few potential fees that could strengthen revenue and help to sustain services.
‘We have cut all the fat from the budget,’ Catherine Alloway, director of the State College-based library, told the trustees on Wednesday evening. She said the Schlow staff, which lost two positions to layoffs last year, is already operating at a bare minimum.
Last week, Alloway and other library employees developed a list of seven revenue-generating and three cost-cutting ideas. Trustees tentatively agreed Wednesday to look into several of those options if a budget gap persists for 2011.
Those possibilities include a $15 fee for test proctoring, a service that the library now offers free of charge. Proctoring tests requires staff time, and the library receives five to 15 such requests per week, Alloway said. In the private sector, she estimated, the fee for the service can range from $25 to $100.
Another possibility: A fee of $3 to $5 to pay for shipping items that patrons borrow from libraries outside Pennsylvania. A state code prevents libraries from charging for interlibrary loans themselves, but there’s no rule against charging for related shipping costs, Alloway said.
Trustees also voiced early support for a proposal to charge patrons a $1 fee when they reserve but fail to pick up a book. About 450 of the 3,000 books reserved each month are never picked up, leaving them inaccessible to other users for seven to 10 days apiece, Alloway said.
‘These are oftentimes popular books, and they ought to be in circulation,’ library trustee Gary Mitchell said. ‘ … It’s just civility.’
The trustees reached no consensus over another option: charging $1 apiece for DVD rentals. Those rentals are now free at Schlow, though a number of other libraries, including the Centre County Library, charge for them. A $1 fee at Schlow would inevitably reduce DVD circulation, now estimated at 8,000 to 9,000 check-outs a month, Alloway said.
She said the fee could generate as much as $33,000 a year for the library. But trustees reached no philosophical agreement over whether imposing the fee would be the right thing to do.
They rejected several other options, including a fee for meeting-room use by community groups. Most nonprofits that use the space make voluntary contributions to the library already.
Trustees also were unenthusiastic about the idea of a coffee bar inside the facility. Nor did they want to eliminate the library’s remote book-drop locations, which cost $8,500 a year to operate.
Worst-case-scenario cuts could include reducing the library’s hours of operation or imposing furloughs on employees, Alloway said.
But for now, it’s not clear whether the library may need to implement any of these options. Schlow is expecting to lose at least $60,000 in overall state support for 2011, though the number has not been finalized. (For 2010, the library received from the state about $444,000; its total budget is about $2.1 million.)
At the same time, expenses for insurance, maintenance, utilities and postage are all going up, Alloway said.
Library leaders are hopeful that Schlow’s annual fundraising campaign will help to offset the decline in state support. The campaign, about three weeks old, has already generated at least $22,936 in contributions, Alloway announced Wednesday.
She said 216 of the 342 contributors so far are first-time donors to the library.
In addition, Alloway said, the library is looking to carry over some of its fund balance from 2010 into 2011. The Centre Region Council of Governments, which helps to oversee the library, has generally limited such budget carryovers. But Schlow is hoping to receive an exemption from those rules, as it did last year, Alloway said.
Meanwhile, looking at the longer term, she said she remains concerned that state library funding may never rebound. State support at Schlow has fallen about 33 percent over the past three years, and Alloway said the library will continue to ‘need new revenue streams — period.’
To that end, she said, the library’s 82-space parking lot may offer ‘a cash cow’ at some point in the future. She said the lot, intended as a free, public service for library users, too often is abused by people who don’t really visit or remain at Schlow.
Schlow may eventually want to set a two- to three-hour limit on the free parking for legitimate library users, she said. Those who stay beyond two or three hours could be asked to pay a parking fee, Alloway suggested.
She said the library could generate some substantial income by inviting — and charging — anyone who wants to park there during the library’s off hours.
Alloway has already had some preliminary discussions with the State College borough government, which may be able to run a parking set-up on the library’s behalf, she said.
Schlow trustees voiced interest in the overall concept, but said it needs to be approached carefully and thoughtfully. When the library was reconstructed five years ago, it was done with the regional understanding that free parking would be integral to its downtown location.
The library is expected to prepare its preliminary 2011 budget by next month. Local government leaders will vote on the spending plan by November.
Library employees’ raises will be capped at one percent, according to the budget plans. Schlow counts 31 workers, 16 of them part-timers.
Earlier coverage: Schlow Fundraising Campaign Nears $20,000 Mark
