Hi
everyone,
I’ve
finished the final run-through of budgets with Winnefox and WALS staff. While there may still be changes, I’m
hoping this is as close to being done as possible with the information we have
available now. I wanted to get
information out to all of you so you have an opportunity to comment before I
take a proposed budget to the System Board at the July meeting. Let me know if you have any questions or
concerns. I will continue to make
some minor adjustments between now and the Board
meeting.
I’m very
pleased to report that the net result of all the following budget changes is
that:
The
combination of enhanced revenues in some key places, much tighter budgeting in a
number of accounts, and judicious cutting have allowed us to balance the 2004
budget without significant service cuts.
WINNEFOX
2004 BUDGET
REVENUES
State
Aids - as
you know, our state aids for 2004 and 2005 are expected to show no
increase. I think that is likely to
stand since both the Governor’s and Legislative version of the budget agreed on
this item.
Interest
Revenues –
continue to decline. We’re
projecting $11,000 less in Winnefox interest revenues for 2004 due to declining
interest rates and reduced fund balances.
Contractual
Revenue, Electronic Services – OPL
contracts for 50% of the time of Electronic Services staff. During 2002, that represented half of
two full time positions. As part of
the 2003 budget, we eliminated one of those two positions. For 2004 I have restructured the
remaining staff configuration. Joy
Schwarz, ILL Librarian spends half of her time on web development/electronic
service development projects and has for several years. I have added half of her time to the ESS
staff configuration. OPL will still
contract for 50% of the combined time of this staff which results in a revenue
increase to Winnefox of $17,692.
EXPENDITURES
Salaries
& Fringe Benefits – we
have included an estimated 2% salary increase for all salaried staff; a 10%
estimated increase in health benefits costs; and the projected increase in state
retirement costs. Since the City of
Oshkosh (Winnefox participates in the City self-funded health plan) has not yet
determined rates for 2004, it will be some time before we know the actual health
cost increase. We have not yet
projected any change in health premium co-payments. I’ll wait to see what the actual
figures turn out to
be.
WALS
Coordinator –
several years ago I had decided that part of Karen Boehning’s cost would be
charged to Winnefox since there were many libraries not in the WALS consortium
that would still require her services/support in the technology area. 25% of those costs were part of the
Winnefox budget. Since, as of early
2004, there will only be 4 libraries that are not part of WALS, I have decided
to reduce that subsidy to 12.5%.
That represents a savings to the Winnefox budget of
$10,609.
Community
Relations/Marketing – the
funds for this position are now included as a contract in the Contractual
Services budget at $45,000 which is approximately the same cost as the former
position (salary and benefits).
We have
carefully reviewed and tightened up a number of budget items for some
significant savings. One result of
this budget tightening is that we may have to rely on contingency funds more
(from our undesignated reserve) if revenue or expenditure estimates prove
wrong.
Telephone –
reduced by $1,250 based upon past expenditure
patterns.
Travel – all
staff and trustee travel accounts were reviewed and past experience suggested we
could cut them by $7,700 and not have any adverse
impact.
Advertising – is
used primarily for ads for hiring.
Since this happens infrequently, it is a good candidate for use of
undesignated carryover funds if we have to place ads. Cut
$1,000.
Software – cut
by $2,000 based upon closer scrutiny of past
expenditures.
Postage
Equipment Expense - cut
by $2,000 based upon closer scrutiny of past
expenditures.
Van
Replacement – we
increased this line item by $4,000 in anticipation of the fact that we will
probably need larger vehicles when we replace the present vans at a higher
cost. Half of this increase comes
in as revenue since one van is paid for by WALS member
libraries.
Electronic
Information Site Licenses – this
is perhaps the most direct service cut in this budget. We will reduce spending on site licenses
by $10,000 and go from $50,000 to $40,000 for
2004.
ILL Net
Lender – is up
due to an increase in net lender volume from the Resource Library. The rate for ILL transactions remained
the same.
Workshop
Registration Reimbursement – this
line item was eliminated since no expenses had been charged to it in two
years. We determined it was a
redundant line item and that these expenses were being charged elsewhere. Saves
$1,400.
Kay Swan
Grants – these
small education matching grants were increase by
$250.
Staff
Training – this
line item was where we were charging the costs of computer related training from
an allocated reserve established two years ago for all member library
staffs. Since this was intended as
a one time project (which lasted two years), we were able to substantially lower
this line item by $6,500 and still leave $1,500 for actual staff
training.
WALS
Membership Fee – I
lowered this fee by reducing the amount we were budgeting for PC
replacement. We will draw down our
direct capital reserve account for PC replacement for the next couple of years
and rebuild an income stream when state aids revenues increase again. This saved a net
$3,723.
Enrichment
Grants – this
is actually a vestige of cuts made in the 2003 budget. Instead of eliminating the grants
entirely in the 2003 budget, we decided to phase them out and budget half of the
normal amount to be paid out of carryover funds (which is why our undesignated
reserve balance is down over $30,000 this year).
WINNEFOX
AUTOMATED LIBRARY SERVICES
Here are
the most significant changes within the 2004 proposed WALS
budget.
Formula – this
is by far the biggest change in the 2004 budget. With the addition of Fond du Lac to the
group of member libraries, the formula allocations for the existing members
decrease enough to cover a number of cost increases so that no existing members
see any significant increase as a result of the upgrade or addition of Fond du
Lac.
Personnel
& Operations – this
line item covers that portion of the WALS staff funded by the members and
associates as well as contracted positions at OPL for database maintenance
(cataloging) and system support. In
general, this item reflects the same 2% estimated salary adjustment and 10%
estimated health benefit cost increase as in the Winnefox
budget.
WALS
Coordinator – as
mentioned in the Winnefox narrative, the share of this position paid for by WALS
libraries increased from 75% to 87.5%.
I anticipate that this position will gradually become 100% WALS
funded. This resulted in a WALS
budget increase of $10,609.
Catalog
Position (.5 FTE) – we
have added a half-time catalog librarian to the OPL cataloging operation in
order to better manage the addition of Fond du Lac work load. All WALS libraries share the cost of
this position. Results in a budget
increase of $25,690.
Maintenance – this
item increases significantly by $49,836 primarily due to three reasons: 1) an
increase in user licenses from 140 to 280; 2) the addition of Fond du Lac PL to
the shared system; and 3) an increase in the cost of the Syndetics software
license since this is now being purchased on a system-wide
basis.
Telecommunications – the
increase of $9,810 is due to WISCNET charges (our Internet service provider)
being paid fully by Winnefox with no anticipated e-rate offset. The result of this action is that no
funds would be used by WALS that would require filtering under the CIPA
decision.
Capital
Reserve – we
have begun budgeting again for a gradual build up of shared capital reserve
funds. We provided everyone a
“holiday” from this expense in 2003.
We need to rebuild our shared reserve since we will be spending it down
by over $257,000 during 2003/4 for the SIRSI upgrade. We have included an increase to $20,000
in 2004 and will need to gradually rebuild that amount to about $50,000 a year
in order to have enough funds available to upgrade/replace shared equipment in
the future. There is also $5,000
budgeted for van replacement.
WINNEFOX
COOPERATIVE TECHNICAL SERVICES
Coming
soon.
John
John V. Nichols,
Director
Phone: (920) 236-5212
Oshkosh Public
Library
Fax: (920)
236-5228
www.oshkoshpubliclibrary.org/
Email:
nichols@oshkoshpubliclibrary.org
Winnefox Library
System
106 Washington
Ave.
"connecting people
with information"
Oshkosh, Wisconsin
54901
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