Byline Tax Sharing Agreement Made Easy

Byline annex

[Music] welcome back to buy line this is a public affairs show here at Amherst media and it's co-sponsored by the amorous League of Women Voters and we hope that you've been getting some benefit out of this learning about our new town government and how things are unfolding as we stand up our town council and and change a bunch of the procedures we got so used to things the way they were with Town Meeting and a select board but it's a new day a new town government and we hope that these shows are providing some insight into how things are evolving and how we're doing with our transition and today our guest is Sharon cherry our director of the Jones library and we want to welcome you and thank you for your service here in town you've been doing a great job and you're not only in charge of the Jones library downtown but you have two other satellite libraries and they're busy as well and today in order to help our viewers understand what's going on in the budget picture we'd like to talk with you about started start out by talking about the budget and and how your experience has been as we're transitioning from the previous system because you did five or six budgets under the old system and now you're doing doing a budget under our new system so how's it been FY 20 but request presentation to town council yesterday are the Finance Committee and they asked this inform our viewers that maybe a few weeks ago because these shows are not necessarily broadcast immediately but so you gave your presentation thank you and they asked that same question and for me for the library really the process hasn't been very different I know other town departments have worked differently in prior format but but for us I've always given my presentation to the budget coordinating group for example and then on to the final budget coordinating group is they are a group of folks basically everyone has a seat at the table and when I say everyone I mean Finance Committee the School Committee the library trustees and the the well it was the select board and now it would be Town Council and the beauty of BCG is its short for BC for the budget coordinating group it they begin meeting in October and and so it's a year almost a year long well an academic year long worth of conversations you know what kind of issues financial issues are the schools having what kind of issues is the town having what kind of issues is a library having so it's just it has always been this beautiful back and forth conversation so when it finally comes full circle - it's time for at that time it was time meeting and now it's Town Council we are all on the same page about our needs our challenges and and what we're going to approve and it takes a lot of the guesswork animosity almost that I've seen in other municipalities that don't do this so so that process is the same under the town council form of government and at that stage you're hearing the town's perspective on what they think is going to be coming up in terms of the amount of revenue available and the pressures on the town you get to share your aspirations and in that process of going back and forth you get a sense of the parameters for budget making for the upcoming fiscal year and they get a sense of your hopes and aspirations and challenges for your department and there are two sides to the budget there's obviously revenue and then there's spending let's focus on the revenue for a minute because you get some state revenue how does that work so we let me go back just a little bit a little bit beyond that and that so I call them buckets so the Jones library is one of the state's many hybrid libraries we are a town department and we are our own 501 C 3 corporation and we have the best of all worlds actually and so we have this town appropriation that comes and it funds 75% of our budget but we also have state money coming in through state aid we also have the endowment draw and and then we have the fundraising piece and so it's through all of these different buckets that we are able to fund our entire so the endowment and your fundraising produces about 25 percent of your budget where is town appropriation come into that so that's about 75 percent 75 yeah and then the 25 is the endowment and the state and so that's what I meant to ask so where does the state aid fit in what percentage of your budget is coming from state aid about 6 percent just round numbers it's about a hundred thousand dollars every year that we get and the state aid the beauty of state aid is every public library in order to be certified and eligible to receive state aid we have to play by some rules so we have to spend a certain amount of money on books we have to be open a certain number of hours per week we have to have certified library director based on population that kind of a thing and so what we get in return for being certified is it not only the state aid award but also we get to participate in statewide interlibrary loan delivery the databases statewide all sorts of things that we know one municipality could afford on its own and the state aid award is based on three different things our circulation number so the more we circulate the more money we get the second piece of that puzzle is its - its non-resident circulation in that so if you're a certified library you can use any other certified library in the state of mass to sex with your library card it's wonderful if you're from a town that's not certified each library that is certified gets to choose whether or not it will serve you for free and so the the thought there is if you in your town if that municipality doesn't value library services enough to fund it properly then why should that burden be put on the other municipalities that are funding it properly so the higher the non-resident circulation the more money we get through state aid because in theory so it's a tax so it's an effective regionalization approach and you're rewarded for making your collection available and for providing those services to other people and so that that's a very net positive because it also helps your budget yes okay and so you basically have four revenue streams this is one way to look at this and the largest of course is coming from the town and so the voters and taxpayers and residents of the community are actually by the amount of money that's allocated to the library making a statement about the importance of libraries as institutions it's the one town department in any municipality that really that the voters are choosing to make a priority and so the town of hammers allocates a little over two million dollars to the Jones library and by the way we think about in support libraries in this community because we allow other people to come in and use our facility it also says something about our values as a region and has been part of a broader community beyond our own borders so that's that's really exciting public commitment and that's appropriate in a self-governing Society after all if people don't have a place to learn and our schools do a big part of that job but we need lifelong learning we need to be able to find out information and get access to things through the library that we might otherwise not have and it doesn't discriminate based on any capacity economic race gender you walk in that door you the whole world opens to you and I turn into such a geek when I start to talk about it but how powerful is that that whether you have a really really big home or no home at all you can come to the library and we are gonna treat you the exact same way that we treat everybody else and a lot of people show up to use your computers while they're searching for a job students show up as part of doing their homework people need to you want to open up a business you can come to the library and find out specifics about the kinds of things that you want to do in your business but you can also get access to census data and all kinds of other things that you might need in order to help you think through your business plan etc so the library can provide a lot of different services so we've talked about the revenue side now let's talk about the spending side so we have three facilities in town and they're staffed and they have collections and books move back and forth where does most of the money gets spent in the library budget so I think just as is the case for most most municipal departments you know we're not building widgets we are a service industry and so the majority of our budget goes to salaries so the town appropriation it's about 75 percent of our budget our salaries is actually about 78 percent of our expenses so the the town appropriation funds most of our salaries there's still a small chunk of money that we use we actually use state aid to pay for the remainder of our personnel costs but everything else is paid for through state aid through fundraising and and the endowment and that's why the endowment is so important and we can talk about the endowment and the draw rate and all of that but the thing that it's important for people to understand is that the town appropriation only pays salaries it's not paying for things like insurance and you know gas for the vehicles and supplies and staff training and stuff like how do you pay for the books and the periodicals and the subscriptions that you have available and so that's all through that's donations the friends yeah the are in the endowment our other sources ok very good and you mentioned the endowment and you might be able to give us some more insight about how did that endowment come together you told us a little bit about these other threads or streams of revenue what percentage comes from the endowment so the endowment is about it covers about 12% of our operation operating costs and so historically the thing that's so amazing about the Jones library is it began because of Abba Quest you know private philanthropy put us on the map and has been going strong for a hundred years now a hundred years this year and so when we talk about the need for fundraising it's it's not a new it's not a new idea and where was I going with that thought so we're talking about how the endowment got built thank you I would grow yes so the the philanthropy and that's where the endowment began and right now it's at eight million dollars and it has had its ups and downs but largely because of the market because it's invested correct okay and we've been through historically it was passively managed and when the economic downturn happened in oh eight and oh nine the trustee switched to active management and there was a bit of a downturn there but we have since switched back to passive management and it's doing beautifully and over the years you've gotten the quests from individuals in town and sometimes it goes into the endowment or always it goes into the demo which is it the trustee is pick and choose they vote depending on the amount very often it depends on the needs of that day and and what our what our revenue stream is looking like at that moment so if we're in a recession and and tax revenues are down and so your budget is is under pressure from either state or local sources you might end up using a bequests or a gift for the operating or more of it for the operating and putting a little less in the endowment it's that sort of give-and-take correct they've tried so over the past let's say four years they've been able to bring the draw rate down to four percent so that's our goal and but in the past our draw rate has been in some years between six and seven percent so this set of trustees have really done an amazing job of keeping the eye on the prize so we want our endowment draw rate low so that the endowment itself will continue to grow our goal is ten million dollars in the endowment so that a four percent draw rate will give us four hundred thousand dollars that's really what we need to operate comfortably and and so while we went from five and a half percent to all the way down to four percent that those were some hard times so we spent down a lot of our reserves and we've been ramping up our fundraising efforts and we're really headed on a great path right now that's a very important set of goals because my understanding of how endowments work is that ideally you don't want to spend more than about four percent because then you start eating into the principle and what you want to be able to do is to build the endowment large enough over time that you can maintain 4 percent but without eating into the principle so that's that's the goal of of the trustees at this point that's that is a really tough job but it's also very very prudent and so that leads me to say so you're also now thinking I've been working for a number of years on a capital project which is handled totally separately so let's talk about how libraries get built in Massachusetts we have an unusual situation because most states do not have a library construction program to subsidize the renovation and expansion or building new public libraries so let's talk a little bit about that the Jones library was the beneficiary in the very first round of library construction grants back in the 1990s and it got a very healthy contribution to build that library and here we are fast-forward some 25 or so years later and we're engaged with the board of library commissioners of again now in terms of a new project so let's start with the mechanics so how does the library construction grant program work oh my oh my okay so the point of view of a community that's looking at improving a library so once once the library trustees and staff and Friends group and any municipality did start realizing I mean it's a long process they're starting to see deficiencies in the building and it's amazing you would think what difference does the building make you know you have great staff you have great great trustees and a great municipality like we do it and Amherst at all support library services why do the four walls matter what they really do not only and the the need for it being up-to-date but the safety of it is very important the technological aspect you know for a building to be wired properly for technology is huge for libraries now it is everything and and so you need that piece and so the NBL see I'd love to do a shout-out to the MB LC and every legislature legislate or in the state of Massachusetts who has ever voted in favor of this funding program probably such as yourself I got to vote on the first bill and the renewal every 10 years or so it's beautiful as you said most states don't have this and it really speaks volumes about how much the state of Massachusetts and values library services because this is money that in theory they don't have to be allocating so you see the doubt the downside the problem with the with the the actual building and so this group of trustees they usually form a feasibility committee and they start detailing documenting what the downside what the downfalls are what all the problems are and and then you wait for a grant round to open up through the NBL see and you'll work with them on planning and design you hire an architect you come up with a set of schematics and then you end up with here here are a set of schematics here's a cost estimate and then you take that to your town and you say hey we want to apply for the construction grant and that'll be for the big multi-million dollar regardless of you know which municipality you're in and you take it from there and what percentage of the project is funded by the state if they approve your project so in our case the percentage is I don't have off the top of my head but it is a thirty five point seven million dollar project the grant is for a little over 14 million it's heading toward 50 percent yes not actually 50 percent but it's closed yes correct we did a feasibility study a financial feasibility study we expect to raise through private donations and and applying through historic tax credits we're hoping to raise six million dollars there which would leave fifteen point nine million from the town and at what point will the state release the money that is the question we have been told we think we will rise to the top in FY 21 so that's a year from now and then I'm not sure when during FY 21 it could be July it might not be until January so depending on when that show you're on the waiting list you have an approved project they've approved your design and etc and so what is the town and the community have to do in in anticipation of your reaching the point where they have enough money to fund this project so what we'll do before we're given the money from the MBL see as we'll start our capital campaign we hope to do that this summer and then we wait for the NBL C announcement and when that happens the town has between six and 12 months a year to vote in favor of the project and what that means is they are voting for their share of the project cost in this case it will be the full twenty one point nine million dollars because the state is signing a contract with the town so they're taking responsibility for that in essence but any amount of money that we fundraise or get through historic tax credits that will offset what the town what we actually take to the town council has to vote for fifteen twenty one point nine twenty one point nine and how much do you hope to raise six six and any other possibilities other than the fundraising and the town for that portion of the money not that's coming to my head right now so it's a big job yeah and the community's got a rally behind it and the amount of money that has to be raised is not insignificant but we've seen other campaigns in the community that have been successful in the in the range of what you hope to raise correct and you have you has the trustees set a number as your goal at this point I think the split between the historic tax credits and and the fundraising is about three million for each so your goal would be to try to get three million in tax credits and three million raised from the people in the community correct very good so let's talk about visions and aspiration any any organization worth its salt especially that operates in the public sphere will have dreams and visions that exceed their current grasp but toward which they're working so let's start by saying in the upcoming fiscal year's budget are there any new initiatives being funded if you were funded at the level that you've requested there's one new database that we will be subscribing to it's called canopy canopy with a K it is an incredible live streaming video service that there are a handful of neighboring town libraries that have subscriptions to this but our trustees agreed to to fund it we get asked for it a lot so it's their indie films and top documentaries and so we're not talking it's not Netflix kind of things these are above and beyond perfect a perfect fit for a merge so that's that's the one new initiative that we will be able to have everything else it's really a level funded a level service budget we are focusing more efforts on fundraising and [Music] we're kind of not coasting we're certainly we're working both you've you've hit a plateau but it's a comfortable plateau this is where you want to be for now yes and this one new service will enhance what you can provide to the community so what's on the list that you would like to seed happen someday I'm not talking beyond beyond the building yeah what what else would you like to see offered at the library and you have two minutes to talk about it so if money were no object I would love more staff specifically for programming I have one of the things that I'm really proud of in my seven and a half years has been the the I call it a programming explosion our staff are so focused on providing programs and and the community has responded beautifully so right now we have on average about two programs per day regard for all sorts of agents I think we could easily have we could easily have four programs a day and they would be very well attended so that's one piece of the puzzle I would love a head of technology somebody who could really take us to the next next level technologically speaking because there are so many things that technology can do and so I would love somebody who's actually in charge of you know the dreaming and the envisioning and then bringing it all on the tech side yeah so that's two really big two big ones and do you think well first is the building being designed so that you could realize those more effectively once you're in a position to fund them yeah so just just talking about programming on its own so right now we have three meeting room spaces that are used by the public as well as library staff for all of this programming and so everybody's everybody's duking it out battling for time and in the new space once we have more meeting rooms so children will have their own spaces to have theirs their events teens will have their own spaces and it will leave enough space for the public to still have meeting rooms for birthday parties and company meetings and things like that terrific well you heard it here there's a lot of passion in what you've delivered for us today in this conversation we want to thank you for joining us and thank you for watching and I get ready because they're coming at all of us here in town at some point to say thank you for supporting the libraries through your annual contribution through property taxes but we're looking at a special initiative that is about to take form here in the community and they'll be tapping us all so thank you for your passion and your good work and again thank you for joining us [Music]