The Haines Borough Public Library will continue to shift from grant-funded staff positions in fiscal year 2012, when the salary for youth services coordinator Holly Davis will be paid entirely by the borough.
The Haines Borough Assembly adopted the budget June 14, to go into effect Friday. The budget includes $344,822 for the library, up from borough manager Mark Earnest’s initial allocation of $334,507 in April. The borough budgeted $324,466 for the library last year.
The library’s first budget proposal this year requested $370,969 from the borough.
“We were asking for positions that had previously been covered by grants to be covered through the borough, because they are positions that have been in place for a number of years,” said Patricia Brown, library director.
Brown and the library board in February sent a letter to Mayor Jan Hill, Earnest and the assembly that expressed concern about “continued reliance on grants for essential staff positions.” The letter thanked the borough for funding 8.75 of 21 hours per week for the youth services coordinator and seven additional hours for the library’s technology coordinator during the last budget cycle.
Brown met with Earnest and Jila Stuart, borough chief fiscal officer, to further discuss the budget.
“There was a big gap between the library request and the manager’s budget recommendation, and the assembly said to get together, talk about it and try to figure something out,” Stuart said.
Brown said the youth services coordinator “was the primary position we were looking to have picked up, rather than having to seek grant funding for it.”
Holly Davis as youth services coordinator leads children’s and early literacy programs and visits Head Start and preschool classrooms. The borough’s revised budget added $7,000 to fund that position without grant support.
“(The borough) also increased the budget based on things that we don’t have any control over, like the health insurance increases,” Brown said. “They’ve been very supportive in helping us figure out a way to make sure we can maintain the library services that we have, based on the fact that you just never know with some of these grants.”
The technology coordinator and education/programs coordinator at the library still are grant-supported positions, Brown said.
She said the top grant source in question is a federal Native American Library Services Enhancement Grant through the Institute of Museum and Library Services that the library previously has earned in partnership with the Chilkoot Indian Association.
The library applied for the next round of grants, each valued at up to $150,000 to cover two years, that will be awarded in September. The library’s current Enhancement Grant will expire that month.
“It’s a highly competitive grant process, and it’s a national, tribal library services grant,” Brown said.
The library is hiring, and applications for an opening for a part-time library aide are due 5 p.m. Friday. The wage is $10.68 to $11.58 per hour, for 14 to 19 hours per week. Applications and a job description are available at http://www.hainesborough.us.
Lisa Blank was the library aide when she started training to replace the retiring Ellen Borders as collection development specialist. Borders died March 24, and the library’s website this week still had an update from Davis titled, “We miss Ellen.”