Library dodges funding shortfall
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A decision to focus library cutbacks on urban centres means Salt Spring’s public library will escape the province’s planned 22 per cent funding cut unscathed.
“For us, it’s not as disastrous as we expected,” said librarian Brigitte Peter-Cherneff. “We’re not going to be too badly off.”
The province’s August announcement to cut funding cast a pall of uncertainty over the future of many programs offered at the island’s library. The province will provide $13.7 million in funding to public libraries in 2009-10, down from the $17.7 million issued in the 2008/09 budget.
According to Peter-Cherneff’s calculations, provincial funding for the Salt Spring library will be approximately $944 less than it was last year.
“I don’t think you are going to see a difference,” she said. “The cuts will be felt more at the larger library level.”
The provincial government’s library services branch provides annual grants of about $33,000 to the Salt Spring Public Library. The funds represented most of the $41,279 in overall grant funding received by the library in 2008/09.
The Salt Spring Island public Library Association’s total revenue for 2008 was approximately $267,000.
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