The Bastrop Public Library is facing some tough times.
Library Director Mickey DuVall told the Bastrop City Council Tuesday night that there has been an overall drop in the number of volunteer hours and donations when comparing the past two complete fiscal years.
But in a positive note, The Friends of the Library have stepped up their hours of volunteer work to lessen the hit, DuVall said.
Like other city of Bastrop departments, as well as the Bastrop Independent School District and Bastrop County government, these entities count on volunteer work and financial donations to help offset what have become lean budgets in recent years, DuVall said.
The library’s budget for the current fiscal year, Oct. 1, 2009 through Sept. 30, 2010, is $552,754.
“The budget has gone up, for the most, in very small increments over the past years,” DuVall said. He said the library has a paid staff that, in hours, is the equivalent of 8.8 fulltime employees.
“We added only one part-time high school student in the past three years,” DuVall said.
“There’s just a limited amount of tax revenue the city collects, but the expectation of service for the library is very high.”
DuVall said “service” mainly refers to the checkouts from the library collection and extra work that ensues as checkouts increase each year.
For example, 171,360 items (books, music and other materials) were checked out in 2007-08, but that number increased to 192,700 for 2008-09, a 12 percent increase.
“That increase in checkouts requires more work, checking in and out of books, sorting out books and putting them back on shelves,” DuVall said. “That is what we mainly use volunteers for.”
The number of volunteer hours from people who are not members of Friends of the Library dropped 408 hours over the past two fiscal years, from 1,569 hours in 2007-08 to 1,161 hours in 2008-09, DuVall said.
However, the Friends helped offset that drop with an increase of nearly 300 hours of volunteer work over the same period, from 575 hours in 2007-08 to 870 hours in 2008-09.
“The Friends are very important to our operation and a great source of volunteers,” DuVall said.
Both grants and money donations have taken a big hit, DuVall told the council during his presentation.
In 2007-08, the library had approximately $38,000 in grants versus $23,600 for 2008-09. He said grants typically come from corporations, foundations and the state of Texas.
Financial donations also declined over the same period, from $12,114 to $5,486.
However, in a positive note, the library received a big boost with an $8,000 donation from Bastrop County residents Steve and Dixie West, DuVall said.
“It was a big surprise, it really made my year,” DuVall said.
DuVall said it’s difficult to predict at this point how fiscal year 2010 will shake out, because summer use is the peak period and figures – circulation, volunteer hours and donations – can vary substantially.
As for volunteers, DuVall said anyone interested may call the library at 321-5441 or 303-0934.
“We’d like volunteers to be able to give at least two hours per week,” DuVall said. “We would leave it up to them when they want to do their hours, but we would want it to be on a regular scheduled time.”