FY 18 Annual Report

Library

2018

CITY OF SPENCER, IOWA

Departmental Highlights

The Spencer Public Library is a Tier III library accredited by the State Library of Iowa and may be best known as the home of Dewey the cat. The library is staffed by eight full-time and four part-time employees. The Library is governed by the Library Board of Trustees who are appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by the City Council. Members of the Library Board serve a six year term. Besides being a repository for books, the library plays a central role of the community. It is a place that offers programming for all ages form 1 to 101. Monthly programs include book clubs, Amiee's Tech Talks, movie nights, Anime Club, Fandom Club, and story time. Periodically , the Library will host outside speakers to give presentations on a variety of topics. In FY 18, some of those topics included presentation on Opera Houses: Gone but not Forgotten, Father, Sons and the Holy Ghosts of Baseball, Downstairs at Downtown, a historic walking tour of downtown and Iowa's Ancient Trails. The Summer Reading Program is one of the biggest program sponsored by the library every year. This is a community wide event that centers around a specific theme each year. The program culminates with a party for all participants. FY 18 saw a makeover occur for the library building. In December, the library closed for a two week period to install new carpet, fresh paint and move shelving around. Also included in the project was the addition a new shelving units.

Budget Review

Total expenditures for the Library were $661,012.74 for FY 18, an increase of $49,642.47 (+8.12%) compared to FY 17. The increase in budget was primarily driven by increases in the salaries, contractual services and capital outlay categories. The general operations of the department saw an increase due to general inflation of goods and services. The main increase in operations came from increases in salaries for the department which were planned as part of the city's effort to raise several positions within the department. The other increases in operations were negligible. Employees of the department are members of IPERS and those payments were flat for the fiscal year. The majority of overall increase in expenditures was driven by the large increase in capital expenditures. These projects were planned and funded by the Library Reserve account. The projects included new carpet and fresh coat of paint at the facility. Overall the department expended 95% of its budget.

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