Comparison of Library Budgets for Lewisville and Cedar Hill

Group 5
Pamela Lira
Sarah Maddaford
Martha Pickell
Christina Reedy
Nicole Wilson
Group Compiler
Sarah Maddaford

Midterm

Comparison of Library Budgets for Lewisville and Cedar Hill

General comparison of the budgets

The Cedar Hill Public Library and the Lewisville Public Library are each one-branch public libraries serving very different sizes of populations. In many respects, the budgets for the two libraries reflect these different sized populations, although there are some points of comparison that point to a different focus in terms of service to the community. Several factors are potential indicators of why this may be. Some of these are explored below.

Broadly, the two libraries’ budgets may be compared based on the following categories: Personnel, Supplies, and Operating Costs. Personnel includes salaries and wages, and other costs associated with personnel and staffing. Supplies is a wide umbrella category, including everything from office supplies and postage to reading materials for the libraries. Operating costs includes costs such as utilities, maintenance, and other building costs. More specific comparisons may be made within these categories, in particular how certain items are assigned to certain categories.

The Personnel category is very much the same for the two libraries, and includes for both some of the same costs. These are salaries and wages for full-time and part-time employees, health insurance and worker’s compensation, and government-related costs such as FICA and Medicare. The Lewisville budget also indicates money for life and disability insurance, and car allowances, which the Cedar Hill budget does not take into account. The Cedar Hill budget indicates money for flexible spending, which the Lewisville budget does not. The Cedar Hill budget includes a separate Miscellaneous category that allots funds for travel and professional development costs, such as membership dues. In the Lewisville budget, these items are included under the Services category. The comparison of these personnel expenditures and allotments is the sort of thing potential employees might perform when seeking the most advantageous workplace. This is also the sort of comparison management ought to engage in when revising personnel budgets.

The Supplies budget includes an array of expenses. Many of these are the same for the two libraries, such as office supplies. The Lewisville budget, however, contains separate funding sources for supplies, from a general fund and from a sales tax fund. The Cedar Hill budget allows for supplies from only a general fund. An interesting point about the Cedar Hill budget is that it includes “reading materials” as a broad category under the Supplies category. For the purposes of this comparison, Lewisville’s allocation of money for reading materials, etc., is also included under Supplies, although on the actual budget, these materials are included under the separate category of Services. The Lewisville budget also differentiates between different types of “reading materials,” with separate allotments for such things as books and printed materials, audio-visual and other non-print materials, and subscriptions and periodicals. The Cedar Hill budget also includes computer-related costs under the Supplies category. The Lewisville budget contains a separate category for computer replacement, but lists other computer-related costs, such as software, under the Services category.

Operating costs is perhaps the most comparable category between the two libraries, not in terms of the amounts of money budgeted, but in terms of the basic costs necessary to keep a library open. These include water, electricity, gas, and telephone services, building repair and maintenance costs, as well as building rental and property insurance. It is interesting to note that the Cedar Hill budget contains separate categories for Maintenance, Professional services (i.e., attorney), Insurance, and Utilities, while, again, the Lewisville budget lumps most of these costs under a Services category.

Identify similar budget line/funding

The Lewisville Public Library and Cedar Hill Public are both single branch libraries, with Cedar Hill located 20 miles southwest of downtown Dallas, and Lewisville, 25 miles northwest of Dallas. Both library budgets compared for similarities are for FY 2009 to 2010. Out of the three categories: Personnel, Supplies and Operating costs, Personnel has the most similarities between the two libraries. Although Lewisville Public Library has a little more than twice the amount of personnel compared to that of Cedar Hill, they are however, evenly distributed with all staff receiving roughly the same amount wages or salary: CPL $489,885; LPL $1,173,571. Longevity Pay, Health Insurance and TMRS are also similar in budget amount, as adjusted according to the number of staff (See Figure 1 below for comparison).

In regards to supply expenditures, general office supplies are surprisingly the same despite Lewisville being a larger library with more employed staff. As for services and maintenance, Subscription and Periodical expenses are very similar: CPL $25,000; LPL $28,000. These numbers are somewhat surprising as Lewisville PL serves a higher number of patrons compared to Cedar Hill PL, which could indicate that periodicals are in more demand by their patrons. The budget for Special services and Printing services are also similar: (Special) CPL $6,200; LPL $7,845; (Printing) CPL$1,500; LPL $1,020. Other maintenance and utilities budget similarities include Telephone and Water/Sewer: (Telephone) CPL $1,215; LPL $1,000; (Water/Sewer) CPL $2,200; LPL $3,500.

Further similarities can be seen in the structure of the overall budget between Cedar Hill PL and Lewisville PL. The setup of both budgets is well organized with the first column listing the item account number; the second column lists the itemized budget category, while the third column lists the total amount for that category. Both budgets begin with General Fund, followed by Supplies and Maintenance/Services.

Despite numerous differences between Cedar Hill PL and Lewisville PL, there are still some striking similarities that can be seen in the libraries’ budget.

Divergent Paths Indicated by the Budgets

The budgets of the Lewisville Public Library and the Cedar Hill Public Library indicate that each is on a rather different path than the other. Both libraries are comprised of a single branch within the city limits. The Cedar Hill Public Library has a general fund that is half of that of Lewisville. The Lewisville library also gave data about the Sales Tax Fund which provides an increase of about half a million dollars to the library’s budget. If Cedar Hill has other sources of funding, then their budget might not be as low as the general fund indicates. The difference in budget could signify that the Cedar Hill library is smaller than the Lewisville library either in building or collection size.

The population of Cedar Hill is about half of that of Lewisville which could justify the difference in budget size except for the fact that the average person in Cedar Hill makes $20,000 more a year than the average person in Lewisville. The difference in average income suggests that citizens of Cedar Hill have more to spend towards funding their library than Lewisville citizens, but the general fund is still more than half that of Lewisville. There may be other community services like police and roads that Cedar Hill has spent their money on instead of the library. The difference in priorities may be because of cultural or racial factors because Cedar Hill has thirty percent more minorities than Lewisville. This is not to say that minority populations would not give more funding to libraries elsewhere, but that it may be one factor.

Both libraries spend over sixty percent of their budget on personnel costs such as wages, insurance and social security. Cedar Hill spends seven percent more on personnel than Lewisville possibly to keep their librarians somewhere near the average income of the city. Lewisville offers its employees disability and life insurance as well as a car allowance which are not part of Cedar Hill’s budget. Cedar Hill maintains an Unemployment Compensation budget that is four times higher than Lewisville, but the Worker’s Compensation budget is only five percent of what Lewisville keeps. Perhaps more Lewisville employees get hurt on the job and do not get fired, while Cedar Hill experiences a higher turnover rate but a lower incidence of accidents on the job.

Neither library spends more than twenty percent of their budget on collection development. Lewisville spends about one percent more than Cedar Hill’s fifteen percent, but these numbers are very low especially compared to the personnel budget. These two libraries could be focusing more on the expert searching skills of the librarians than on providing materials in which the patrons can find their own answers. Another explanation is that the demand for materials including print, audio, visual and serial is low in these two communities. The second hypothesis does not appear to be compensated for by an increased usage of library computing resources which indicates that the libraries are not sacrificing circulating materials in favor of going digital.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Two Budgets

The following is analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the Cedar Hill Public Library System, and the Lewisville Public Library System. The analysis is based on the data collected by my fellow peers in hopes to gain knowledge on the most feasible and most responsible fiscal decisions by both library systems.

Strengths

From examining the strength of the budgets of both libraries and evaluating by the following categories: Staffing, Services, Partnerships, Collections, and Infrastructure. The Lewisville Public Library allots about 60 percent of the budget to staff salaries and wages. One of the strengths of the Lewisville Public Library is that it has a seemingly strong human resource systems, solid staff salaries and stability, benefits packages, and unemployment compensation. The Cedar Hill Public Library‘s staffing takes up about the same percentage of the budget as the Lewisville Public Library. The Cedar Hill Public Library’s total budget is significantly less than that of its Lewisville counterpart.

The services that the Cedar Hill Public Library, and the Lewisville Public library provides are: adult, children, and teen services to the community. The budgets for these services to the public are varied, and could be modified if needed. Some of the services provided are: internet use, wireless connection, software instruction workshops, and children’s story time. The Lewisville Public Library‘s expenses for computer replacement could be modified by applying for a grant and refurbishing the current computers. Lewisville Public Library was given donations by local community businesses, and used many of the donations for prize giveaways during the summer reading program. Since the budget for the Cedar Hill Public Library is similar, the suggestion that I think is the most feasible, is to get help from the Friends group to help supplement materials and costs.

The collection development of the Lewisville public library budget is comparable with that of the Cedar Hill Public Library. The Lewisville budget spends about 20 percent of the budget for collection development, and the Cedar Hill spends less but not by a large margin. The budget for collection development must stay the same in order to continue to fill gaps within the collection and stay current with the subscriptions that help to keep the collection well rounded for a diverse group of patronage.

The infrastructure of the Cedar Hill Public Library and the Lewisville Public Library gains strength through the programs offered in teaching software applications and the use of the internet by repeat patrons.

Weaknesses

Some of the staffing issues surrounding both library systems are the reduction of the fiscal budget every year, which affects the ability to replace workers who retire, and part time workers who desire to become full time. The problem is there are hiring freezes within almost every library system today, so with the advent of upcoming retirement and no money for hiring, there are fewer workers with more work to be completed and more patrons using the services. This affects the budget immensely because the services cost more annually, and there is no money to accommodate the rate increases.

Some of the services offered by both library systems will have to be affected by budget cuts, due to the economy and the lack of funding. Many of the partnerships with both library systems are local businesses, but as the economy is challenged, those who partner with local libraries may decrease their donations, or will donate other things rather than money in order to curtail extra expenditures within their personal business.

Collection development is important, but collection development must be handled with the advent of this challenging economy using grants and Friends’ groups, who are going to be encouraged to help supplement any gaps within the collection.

The infrastructure of the library systems can always be costly, and the IT of all systems is usually very costly to maintain. There are upgrades and new purchases continually necessary in order to have the best operating systems within each branch that provides internet use and services. There will be deductions for both systems, but this may not be the best decision down the road because large systems or sole branches, like Cedar Hill and Lewisville, still have high operational costs. Inevitably, there will be a number of infrastructure problems due to the lack of funding to address many of the necessary upgrades for the many computer systems in order to maintain speed and efficiency.

Library Most Hurt by Budget Cuts

The Cedar Hill library would suffer greatly if a budget cut was announced. While the population of Cedar Hill has a higher median income than the population of Lewisville, cuts to the Library of Cedar Hill would be greater because it is a smaller library with less staff and fewer resources. The wages of the Full time staff for the Lewisville Library as compared to the Cedar Hill Library differ by almost $424,000. The Lewisville Public Library in 2008 had large staff of 15 full-time and 24 part-time employees (Eakin, 2008). The Zula B. Wylie Public Library of Cedar Hill employs seven full-time employees with a total salary budget at $265,320, a substantial difference from the Lewisville Public Library at $688,897 for their full-time library staff.

Though the median income of the Cedar Hills Library is $82,404, and the median income of Lewisville is $67,454, the Cedar Hills library services a smaller population. Any reduction in budgets may result in a loss of programming and services which are necessary in the current economy. The Wylie Library will suffer from a budget cut as it cannot afford to lose any of their seven staff members. The services of the library would diminish. The current 2009-2010 Work Plan delineates the number of programs the library will conduct for the entire population it serves. A reduction in budget will affect programming, services and hours of the library. The reduction in services would directly affect any households reducing their extraneous costs such as internet, or periodical delivery to save money for essentials such as the mortgage, electricity and food. The Wylie Library is not open on Sundays; any further reduction in budget may lead to a closing on Monday or reduction in hours.