A long-simmering debate about how much Sturgeon County should pay to support the Morinville Public Library took another step forward Tuesday when the library’s board attached some hard numbers to its concerns.
Members of the library board appeared at Sturgeon County council Tuesday to sort out a long-standing debate about the right amount of funding the county should give the library.
The county provides an annual operating grant to all libraries within Sturgeon County through its membership in the Northern Lights Library System. Over the past several years the county has also given several thousand dollars in extra funding to each of the libraries.
The additional funding, which ranged from $2,000 to $3,000, required that libraries charge the same amount in membership fees to Sturgeon County residents as town residents, which so far Morinville has declined to do.
For several years the library board has declined to accept the $3,000 due to the attached strings.
During a presentation Tuesday, the board broke down the funding it receives from each municipality and the number of cardholders in both communities.
In 2010, there were 2,514 users from Morinville — or about 65 per cent of cardholders — and 1,317 cardholders from Sturgeon County — about 34 per cent.
In contrast, according to the board’s budget, Morinville contributed $250,837 while Sturgeon County provided $33,006.
Those numbers don’t include allocations from Northern Lights for both communities for book purchases for the library.
The numbers also include the in-kind support Morinville provides with free rent for the library building and clerical help.
Library board chair Noreen Radford said the board believes the numbers clearly show the funding model isn’t fair.
“Our numbers are extremely conservative and all we are asking Sturgeon is for equitable funding,” she said. “Why should the town of Morinville be taking the majority of the budget?”
The board proposed an alternate budget to the county, which would raise Sturgeon’s contributions to around $96,000 while lowering Morinville’s to around $220,000.
For now, Sturgeon County residents will continue to pay library membership fees that are double the rate charged to Morinville residents because the imbalance still exists, Radford said.
The fee for an adult library user from Sturgeon County is $20 per year, whereas Morinville adults pay $10.
“It is a statement for residents to realize that Sturgeon County is not providing full support in terms of operations of the Morinville library,” she said. “This is not an ideal situation, but our hands are tied.”
County council was non-committal Tuesday regarding the request for additional money.
“It is obvious we have some homework to do and some studying to do with both libraries before we can decide what to do,” said Coun. Tom Flynn.
Radford said they weren’t looking for an immediate answer.
“At this point all we were doing was creating awareness because I think at some point the mayor and councillors may not have been exactly aware of the numbers.”
