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Budget Summary
The Library’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2011-2012 calls for expenditures of
$3,186,016, an increase of $54,088, or 1.7%.
This matches last year’s increase in the Library budget, and it is the smallest for
at least the last quarter century. We understand the continuing financial
difficulties the taxpayers of Darien face, and we have worked hard to reduce this
budget proposal to the lowest possible amount.
We have found the basis to reduce a number of our operating accounts in order
to partially offset unavoidable budget increases in two building operating
accounts – electricity use and maintenance and service.
The table below outlines the major categories affecting the budget proposal:
% of Total Contribution
Budget to Budget
Increase Percentage
Darien Library Staffing Decisions
Total Staffing Decisions $ 6,742
FICA $ 206
Total of Staffing Decisions $ 6,948 12.8% 0.2%
Statistics on use of Darien Library for the fiscal year 2009-2010, the first full year in
the new building, show a significant increase across a broad spectrum.
Visits increased 8.3%
Circulation increased 17.2%
Attendance at programs increased 29.1%
Computer usage increased 60.6%
Reference and Reader Advisor questions answered increased 73.0%
Despite this increase in usage at one of the most intensively used libraries in the
nation, we have continued our efforts to operate the Library at the least possible cost
to the citizens of Darien by making another reduction in staffing.
The reduction in staffing levels continues the trend we began in fiscal year 2006.
Darien Library has become a model for library operating efficiencies, and we have
been visited by a number of other libraries for the sole purpose of studying how we
perform so cost-efficiently.
One of our vendors tells us that the set of our initiatives has become known in the
industry as the “Darien Model.” Library staff members have been asked to take part
in a number of nation-wide on-line seminars to present our organizational
management strategies for analysis by other libraries.
Staffing
To hold our budget increase to the smallest possible amount, we have taken the
following actions with respect to staffing costs:
26.3
25
Fiscal Years
As a result of the actions we have taken with respect to staffing, total personnel
compensation costs, including FICA, will increase by $6,742. The total salary budget
for the Library in fiscal year 2011-2012 is less than the total salary budget for fiscal
year 2009-10, despite a sustained increase in usage of the Library.
29.1 FTE is less staffing than the Library had in the three fiscal years between 2002
and 2005 when it was in a building half the size providing fewer services. Beginning
with fiscal year 2006, the Library began a systematic and rigorous annual, zero-
based review of staffing that provides the basis for operating efficiencies while
continuing to provide extraordinary customer service to the community.
1
FTE: Full Time Equivalent, a measure of staffing that accumulates the hours of part time employees
into an index.
Operating Accounts
The choices we made to install systems that would allow us to staff the building very
efficiently (fewer staff FTEs in the new building than in the old building half its size)
with a consequent reduction is personnel costs, provides a background against
which the maintenance and services costs can be evaluated.
We believe that these latest adjustments will provide a stable basis for
proceeding with building HVAC services in the future.
Building Services
2. The increase in Building Services is the result of an increase in the allocation
for snow removal from $10,000 to $18,000, which reflects our experience
since we have moved into the new building, and a smaller increase in the
allocation for carpet cleaning.
Maintenance/Services
When the new building opened, much of the new equipment, and some
services, were on one-year or longer warranty periods as part of the
acquisition process. Now that the building has been open for more than two
years, the last of the warranty periods have run off, and we will be
experiencing full-year costs for service, maintenance and warranty for all
building equipment and services.
Health Insurance
Retirement
82.2% of Darien seniors use the Library, more than any other organization or
program in the community, according to a survey by Aging in Place/The
Community Fund in the fall of 2009.
The table below lists the five organizations or programs most highly used by
seniors, according to the survey:
YMCA 24.4%
At the other end of the age spectrum, the Library is used by young children and
their parents and care-givers – often the Library is the first public space a young
child ever visits, and by a growing number of middle school and high school
students who have made the Library the place to visit for studying, especially
during midterms and finals, when the Library remains open until 10:30 or 11 pm,
allowing students to study alone or in groups.
For everyone of all ages, the New Darien Library is a community center; a
distribution center for books, magazines, DVDs, videos, books on tape,
technology and other materials; a cultural center for programs for all ages; a
haven for study and research; a busy technology and continuing education hub;
a resource for Town government and many community organizations. Library
users constantly ask that we extend our hours.
Recent use trends build on past successes. For many years the Darien Library
has proven to be a high-profile example of extraordinary customer service
provided in a remarkably cost-efficient manner.
The latest HAPLR study released in April 2010, ranked Darien Library tenth in
the country among libraries its size, and highest in the state. (This survey was
based on objective statistical measures such as the number of books owned
and circulated, the number of visits made by residents, and the cost
effectiveness of the Library’s operation; Darien Library has been ranked in the
top 10 in each of the survey’s ten years.)
As noted earlier, the Library has seen extraordinary levels of increase in the use
of the Library this year since the opening of the new building.
The Library collaborates with many Darien and other organizations to provide
services to the community. The expanded Library’s many meeting rooms have
been made available at no expense by Board of Trustees policy to the Town of
Darien and its Boards and Commissions.
A list of programs and presentations provided by the Library for the benefit of
the community includes:
Middlesex Genealogists
Nursing and Homecare Association (blood pressure clinic)
Nursing and Homecare Association (flu vaccine clinic)
Obie Harrington-Howes Committee
ONS Foundation (Paddle Tennis Injury Prevention group)
SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives)
Smart Kids with Learning Disabilities
Smart Women Networking
Southwestern CT Counsel on Aging - Long Term Care Forum
U.S. Census Bureau
The Library plays a central technology role in the on-line presence of the
community, assisting more than 35 community non-profits to maintain their web
presences. The library makes available technology to help non-profits with their
activities, for example by lending notebook computers to assist with registration
drives, and video projectors to assist in public presentations.
The New Darien Library provides a much greater range of resources to the
community – meeting spaces, quiet study areas, accessible collections,
services to the young and mature alike – as an extension of its role as the
cultural center of Darien. A broader range of community residents, from Senior
Citizens to young children to Middle and High School students who fill the
Library to study, from community residents who use the Library for enjoyment or
as support for their work, all find support and resources available to their needs
and interests, matched by extraordinary customer service that has a national
reputation for excellence.
This year, January 10, 2011, was the second anniversary of the opening of the
New Darien Library. The $28 million project to fund construction of the New
Darien Library, which opened that day, is the largest gift to the Town by any
measure, and stands alone in terms of commitment to the future of the
community and its residents.
More than 1,650 families donated $24 million – a measure of support beyond
anything this community has ever experienced. They responded to the history of
service the Darien Library has provided over the years, and expressing their
confidence in the future of the Library, and its place at the heart of the Town of
Darien.
Annual Support
We remind you that each year the Library trustees raise all the money the
Library spends on books, DVDs, research services, programs and other
materials through an annual fund drive. We also pay for all on-going capital
expenses from the Friends Fund. (This year we expect to spend approximately
$300,000 on technology projects, as part of a total Friends’ expenditure of more
than $1,000,000.)
For years the community of Darien has been the recipient of funding that
replaces the use of tax dollars for the collection development, technology
initiatives, programs and services that have allowed the Darien Library to
become a community asset.
In addition, from this funding has come the investment in productivity measures
that has helped make Library employees the most productive in the region, at a
considerable savings in labor costs that would have been borne by the
taxpayers.
The major elements of the Library’s budget proposal are outlined below, and we
ask that they be considered in the context of three important considerations:
The Library’s administration has demonstrated over many years that it will ask
only for the resources it needs, and that it can be trusted to manage those
resources in an exemplary manner. The funding we request is the minimum
The Board of Trustees of the Darien Library urges your support of this budget
proposal.
Bruce Ferguson
President, Board of Trustees
As one of the finest libraries in the nation – renowned for its customer service,
collection, lending practices and innate friendliness -- it should be expected that
Darien Library is visited by some residents of adjoining communities exercising their
right under state regulations to use the services to which they are entitled –
borrowing books, DVDs and other items, using reference resources, logging on to
the Library’s computers.
However, it is important to note that non-resident use, which is concentrated in a few
areas of the Library’s collection and services – DVDs and Books on CD in particular
– is at the same level as it was when we began tracking use 20 years ago.
Most importantly, non-resident use of the Library has an insignificant effect on the
Library’s tax-supported budget. Specifically, the only expenditures in the prospective
Town budget that can be attributed to non-resident use are approximately $1,000 for
paper supplies and $1,470 for RFID tags.
The Friends’ budget pays for all books, DVDs, Books on CD and technology – so the
additional items acquired for increased circulation are not a Town expense.
More importantly, the Library has not increased staff in any way because of non-
resident use, and, if all non-resident use went away, would not be able to reduce
staffing positions or hours.
All Library staffing decisions are based on a system that calculates position
requirements from a zero-based model allocating service positions and tasks, not
hours. We staff for service positions – Reader Advisors Welcome Desk, Children’s
Room, Information Services, and Teen Center and Power Library – and for tasks --
ordering and processing books, program development and delivery, web page
development and update, circulation back office tasks, for example. None of these
would change if non-resident use declined or even went away.
We staff for service positions and for tasks, and then we automate those tasks (with
funds from the Friends’ budget) so that volume increases do not require increased
staffing. For example, though circulation has increased by more than 50% in the past
six years, we are making fewer, not more, telephone calls to patrons because we
have provided upgrades to our ILS that email notification. We have automated and
outsourced our book ordering so fewer personnel purchase and process more books.
The other elements of the Library’s town budget – lighting, heating, telephone,
janitorial services, payroll, and all personnel benefits, for example – are not related to
the profile of use by non-residents.
Salary Budget Staff members will receive no increase; FTEs have been reduced by 0.1.
Health Insurance We are in the Town plan, and will experience a reduction in costs because employees
are switching to a less expensive plan.
Unemployment Compensation We are increasing the budget by the amount necessary to fund an ongoing claim.
Electricity We are increasing our budget to match the electricity usage of the building as determined
by experience, and are budgeting the Town of Darien’s consortium electricity rates.
Water and Sewer Budget is increased to account for additional usage required by a switch to the use of
town water for irrigation.
Maintenance/Service Maintenance and service on the new building’s systems. This includes HVAC, the
geothermal system, elevators, building management, security and phone systems, and
the increase represents the full-year effect of maintenance and service contracts coming
on line after the new building warranties have expired.
Building Operations This includes contracted cleaning, snow plowing, grounds, cleanout of our water retention
system and other services. We are increasing our budget to reflect our experience in
snow removal costs and for carpet cleaning the actively used building.
Janitor Supplies Primarily light bulbs, cleaning supplies and paper products for the public restrooms..
Postage and Printing We continue to look to reduce postage by using electronic payment processes.
Staff Development We have further reduced staff development to an absolute minimum of staff hours.
Internet/Telephone This account provides funds for maintenance of our fiber connection to the State of CT CEN,
and our telephone lines and usage.
Outsourced Cataloging Outsourced cataloguing services to reduce the need for staff hours. Increased demand
for books requires an increase in this account.
Darien Library
Fact Sheet
2011
Darien Library has been designated a top 10 library for ten years straight
in a survey by the Hennen American Public Libraries Ranking Index. In
2010 it was ranked the tenth highest of all libraries its size in the country.
Darien Library is the busiest library in Connecticut on a per capita basis.
Darien residents borrow more books on average (31) than any other
community.
97.1% of Darien residents have library cards.
Usage of the Library has increased significantly since the new building
opened.
The Library’s services to the community’s senior citizens are broad-based
and significant:
o A recent survey showed that seniors rely on the Library more than
any other community resource for programs and resources.
During the past year, there were 24,379 participants in Children’s Library
programs, such as Storytime, Born to Read, Sleepytime, Drop-in
Storytime, preschool, elementary and Middle School visits and
BookMANIA!. Attendance at Teen Programs was 2,870 and at Adult
programs was 17,635.
Users cite superior personal service given by the library staff as the
primary reason they prefer Darien Library.
The library is a model of excellence in the use of new technology and
hosts the web pages for 35 local community organizations.
The Library’s Blogs are providing both information and entertainment to
those members of the community who wish to subscribe to a new form of
communication, and have gained national recognition.
A study by the CT State Library in 2004 showed Darien Library had the
lowest cost per circulation item of all libraries studied. This is still the case.