Budget Bite

As I have alluded to before, I find budget preparation time to be a particularly unpleasant exercise.  This year, like most everywhere in the world, HPL will be facing a poor budget outlook.  Despite what your particular tax statement might have said, property valuations are down overall.  Our budget is based primarily on property taxes collected within the city limits of Hutchinson.  As that base shrinks and the values lower, we have to cut back like everyone else.

This year too, we face unprecedented costs for a variety of things.  For example, last August we began a little experiment we hoped would save on our electric bill.  We began leaving the majority of the building's lights off until right before opening to the public, about 5 hours less light bulb use per week.  We were happily surprised to see a drop on average of 160 kilowatt hours per day.  At the same time, though, commercial electric rates rose enough to entirely offset any monetary savings.

Here's a link to wake you back up after that not-so-exciting example.  The link leads to our newly redesigned downloadable book site.  Please let me know what you think!

So, back to the budget.  Unfortunately for us, the timing of this budget shrinkage is about as poor as it could be.  We have been looking forward to some great changes in our space and some continued changes to our services.  Now, some projects will undoubtedly have to be shelved and others scaled back.  The question is, how do we keep our momentum and avoid lapsing into stagnation?  We will truly test our ability to perform as a staff team this year, pitching in and helping each other out.  Perhaps a gut-check is what we need to find out where we are on the cope-with-adversity scale, although honestly, I could probably get by without knowing that.  I am confident in the greatness of the people who work here and their creativity and flexibility.  I hope that they will trust me to help lead the library through some tough times and work with me to come up with ways to make some, at least, of our vision for the library come to into being regardless.