By Cecilia Nasmith/Northumberland 89.7 FM/Today’s Northumberland
One of the key hopes the Cobourg Public Library has for its 2025 budget is to hire more custodial help, so that librarians can spend more time being librarians.
The budget increase they are asking has a net effect of only 0.57% on the overall tax levy for 2025, Chief Executive Officer Tammy Robinson said at this week’s budget meeting.
The specific ask is $1,262,583, with provincial grants and self-generated income making up the remainder of their budget.
Four increased expenses went into the request, one of the most acute being the need for more custodial help beyond the current level of 7 a.m. to noon on weekdays only.
This has meant library staff taken from their official duties to police washrooms, monitor the grounds, set up and clean meeting rooms, and deal with a variety of situations including drug paraphernalia left in the washroom, trash on the floor and spills on the carpet. There have been times they’ve been forced to lock up washrooms or block off areas until the custodian’s next shift.
Salaries and benefits are set to rise, with the library forced to follow suit on settlements made on behalf of the town’s other municipal employees.
Vendor fees are going up, for everything from book purchases to licensing fees.
And everyone knows the bite rising utility costs take out of a dollar.
“We have become experts at maximizing the value of every dollar,” Robinson said.
Councillor Miriam Mutton asked about donations, but Robinson said that these are used for other projects. The self-generated income referred to in the budget line of $30,107 comes from late fees and photocopier fees.
Robinson was introduced by board chair Mike Duncan, who painted quite a lyrical picture of what the library does.
“Libraries are very special places,” Duncan stated.
“They are storehouses for literature and fiction, repositories of knowledge, a place for families to explore with programs for the young, a social outing for the elderly to catch up with friends. It’s a place for councillors to read to kids. It’s a warming hub, a cooling centre, a place offering computer services to those without – all offered to all people of the community.”
