The following statement was issued Friday, November 13, by State Librarian, Nancy Robertson.
Hi everyone,
The budget process has indeed been a long and winding trail, but I think it has settled out at least for now. So here is how things look:
State Aid to Public Libraries at $6,000,000. This works out to $.1963 per capita, which is unfortunately quite a plunge from last year’s $.3141 per capita. Still, it was worth fighting for from our end and through MLA and coming out with at least that.
Book Distribution Centers at $200,000 total to be shared equally between the two operations.
Library of Michigan GF operations at $4,601,400, again quite a drop from our last year’s $5,327,900 final GF operations numbers. This allows us to continue salaries and benefits for the currently filled staff positions and leaves about 15% of the operations money to operate with beyond the salaries and benefits. Although things will undoubtedly be worse next year, for now we are at least holding our own in some fashion.
As for LSTA and MeL, since we did receive a waiver from IMLS for the reduced maintenance of effort we had to report, we will receive our full allotment for the FY10 LSTA dollars. So, with the caveat that things can change and that future budgets may certainly result in adverse effects on expenditures in coming years, our LSTA-funded activities, including all of the components of the Michigan eLibrary and the currently underway “Modeling the Future” subgrants are not in any immediate jeopardy.
Perseverence is the current motto for all of us, and may we all continue to do so!
Best,
Nancy
Nancy R. Robertson
State Librarian
Library of Michigan
P.O. Box 30007
702 West Kalamazoo Street
Lansing, MI 48909-7507
