More than 70% of the Great River Regional Library’s (GRRL) annual budget comes from county support, and Sherburne County residents are getting a good return on their investment.

 

That was the message from GRRL Executive Director Karen Pundsack during the GRRL annual report and budget overview at last week’s county board meeting.

 

The 32-branch library system had over 1.4 million visits last year, with 3,275,115 items checked out.

 

Pundsack said Sherburne County had 19,418 total resident borrowers, with 51% of those using the Elk River branch. Patrons made 143,520 visits to the three Sherburne County branches (Elk River, Big Lake and Becker), checked out 408,265 items, made 14,705 wireless connections and used the computers 9,317 times. Another 2,461 patrons from Sherburne County borrowed from the St. Cloud main branch.

 

“There were as many people in Sherburne County using the St. Cloud library as the Becker library,” she said, “so it’s truly a regional service that’s being accessed by your residents.”

 

She said GRRL operates on an annual budget of about $9 million, which is considerably more cost-effective than other library systems.

 

“We’re often compared to Hennepin County. They run 41 libraries and their budget is about $80 million,” she said. “We run 32, so we’re clearly on the more efficient side of the scale. And we have the  second largest library collection in the state of Minnesota.”

 

Pundsack said about 80% of the annual budget is related to personnel. Cities provide the buildings, which eliminates utilities and maintenance costs in the annual GRRL budget.

 

Aron Murphy, accounting coordinator for GRRL, said the system adopted a new base-budgeting program in 2016 that focuses on core services. It is designed to help streamline the process and break down costs more effectively.            

 

Requests are submitted by departments for increases in the base budget. Murphy said some items are mandated, and they have no control over cost increases, like PERA and contracts.

 

He said the GRRL uses a formula based on population, number of registered borrowers and tax capacity to calculate each county’s share. 

 

The 2018 budget is a 1.10% increase over this year, with Sherburne County’s contribution increasing 1.934% from $1,337,059 to $1,362,913. Murphy said most of the increase statewide is due to an increase in tax capacity.

 

Pundsack said with the new budget said Sherburne County will provide about $14.83 in support for each person in the county. GRRL’s total support per person is $19.60. The statewide average is $38.98. 

 

“Most of our budget is from county signatories,” she said. “We wouldn’t be able to offer the level of services we do without the support of our counties.”