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City Councilors expressed frustration this week with the tardiness of a consultant’s feasibility study of the Longmont Library, which is supposed to be the template for the next phase of the underfunded facility’s growth.
The study by Sieger Consulting was presented to city officials late Monday but well after the 2023 proposed city budget was presented to the council for its review and approval. The council reviewed funding requests for the library in 2023 during a work session Tuesday.
Those requests also came under fire Tuesday night for being sparse given the library’s budgetary deficiencies.
“There has been an ongoing discussion … that the library is not being adequately funded,” Councilor Susie Hidalgo-Fahring said during the study session. “This seems like a small list compared to what is needed.”
“We do not know what is needed, if the requests are not out there,” added Hidalgo-Fahring.
Library officials are asking to create one position for a librarian for children and teens. Staff also want $20,214 for a 20-hour library assistant, and $40,414 for two 20-hour library assistants for the computer lab. There is also a minimum wage increase for library shelvers at a cost of $25,004.
In addition, the library is asking for $12,000 for Xerox printers and $5,000 for two computer monitors, according to the budget requests.
The library is recommending eliminating library fines, which will result in a $35,000 reduction in revenue.
The 2023 proposed budget for the library is $4,435,903 compared to $4,284,007 in 2022, according to the city’s budget message to the city council.
Councilor Tim Waters said this is the third year the library’s budget has been reviewed without benefit of the feasibility study, which would have given the council some guidance on the library’s specific needs.
“We don’t have the information we need,” Waters said. “I feel like this is lacking the attention and urgency it needs.”
City Manager Harold Dominguez said he had just received the consultant’s report Monday evening and officials needed time to digest its findings.
A copy of a "discussion draft" of the library study was emailed to the Longmont Leader Friday. The 37-page document gives a history of the library and the difficulites in funding the facility. It also presents six options available to the city to manage and fund the library, including forming a library district while continuing a "baseline level of service."
Sieger Consultants offered no preference to either option.
Sieger was picked last year to complete a second phase of the feasibility study. The company provided a preliminary report to the council in May.
But some of the factual information presented by Sieger in May was wrong, Mayor Joan Peck said. “The staff had to send the consultant back to the drawing board and rework what they presented,” Peck said.
The public also needs to be consulted on the library’s needs, Peck said. “We need to have a discussion with the public before we put money into something,” she said.
The library is also hampered because the its director position is still vacant, Peck said.
Kimberly Bolan and Associates were hired in 2019 to do the initial assessment of the library’s needs.
Kimberly Bolan found the library is heavily used by the community and popular among patrons. They also found the library, at 409 Fourth Ave., a block east of downtown, at about 51,000 square feet, was built for a population of about 68,000, according to city officials.
The city’s population is closing in on 100,000 this year, according to the latest city estimates.
Kimberly Bolan consultants estimate the library should be at least 85,000 square feet. A library built up to 100,000-square-feet would be big enough to handle Longmont’s future growth. The consultants also said the library needs more funding to bolster its number of digital holdings and expand library hours and activities.
Just over $35,000 of the original $50,000 budget was paid to Kimberly Boland and Associates, according to the city. An additional $50,000 has been allotted for the second phase of the library study.
