Urbandale Library Mulls Increasing Fines, Cutting Hours

Urbandale library patrons might be paying more in library fines, more for photocopies, and more to order a book from another library or use one of the library's meeting rooms.

Library Director Julie Wells told the board Monday night that City Manager A.J. Johnson has asked her to send him options for cutting the library's request for a $2.1 million budget next year.

Wells said the library asked for more money in the 2012 budget year than this year, partly because of about $20,000 in repairs to fix cracks in the stone of the 10-year-old library.

But Johnson, in an email, had noted that the library is one of the city's largest users of property tax money. She said he also noted that he is not asking other departments for budget reduction suggestions at this time.

Wells proposed three suggestions for the board to consider:

• Raise more revenue by increasing fees
• Cut costs by cutting the library's hours
• Cut costs by reducing spending to add to the library's collections, by cutting membership dues, out-of-state travel and staff training, and/or by cutting janitorial and office supplies.

The board voted to suggest the first two options as a way to reduce the amount of tax money going to the library. Specifically, those proposals are: 

• Increase library fines from 10 cents a day to 20 cents a day; fines have not increased in 10 years, said librarians.
• Charge 20 cents for a photocopy instead of 10 cents
• Charge patrons $2 instead of $1.25 to order a book from another local library.
• For the first time, the library would begin charging $50 to for-profit groups to use library meeting rooms. Until now, the library has not charged groups for meeting rooms, which often are booked way in advance, they are so much in demand.
• Save expenses by opening an hour later Monday through Thursdays. It currently is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. those days. 

Board member Thomas Graves has said that Mayor Bob Andeweg has told him the library board should look for ways to save money by sharing costs or services with other suburban libraries.

Andeweg confirmed that Monday night.

"I think every city has been looking at this and there has been some discussion on the metro level," said Andeweg. "I think it's a significant part of our budget. I just think it's something that should be explored," he said.

The library's budget will be discussed by the city council at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 31.

Other than Des Moines, Urbandale's library has the largest circulation of any metro library with just over 700,000 items checked out in 2010-2011, according to library annual reports. It consistently gets very favorable reviews by residents in the city's biennial citizen surveys.