The provincial government has delegated many responsibilities onto municipalities over the years, including paying for the vast majority of the budget for local libraries, but the governance of public libraries remains under provincial jurisdiction.
Unfortunately, no one told that Mayor Shari Green and the rest of city council during their marathon core services review meetings Monday, where they ordered a cost/benefit analysis done on the viability of the Nechako Branch in the Hart. Green can tell council that the library board serves at the discretion of council until she's blue in the face, but that's not what the Library Act says.
The Library Act lets council do just three things - choose who sits on the board, including one city councillor (currently Dave Wilbur and previously Cameron Stolz), approve the library's annual budget (with or without changes), and approve or disapprove of a library request to lease buildings or land.
Section 11 spells it plain: "The library board has, subject to the approved budget, exclusive control over the expenditure of all money provided by the municipal council for library purposes."
This section was written into the Library Act to prevent exactly what mayor and council are attempting to do - intervene in operational decisions. Under the Library Act, libraries across B.C. operate as semi-autonomous public agencies, not departments of municipal governments.
So if city council wants to cut $200,000 from its portion of the library's annual budget, it's the job of the library board and senior library staff, not city council, to figure out how to save that money.
Council is free to recommend to the library board that it close the Nechako Branch but the library board can (and should) do its own analysis and maybe decide to keep the branch open with reduced hours while cutting programs, materials acquisitions, staff hours and positions, and anything else it decides in its wisdom to meet the budget shortfall.
As for that cost/benefit analysis council wants to see, here's an abridged version:
The Nechako Branch also shares space with the Hart Learning Centre with School District 57 so closing the location would have distance education and learning alternatives implications.
The Nechako branch also provides library services to residents of Area A and G of the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George. The regional district pays the City of Prince George to provide those library services and has been a fierce supporter of the Nechako branch, both politically and financially. Closing the Nechako branch would likely lead to a corresponding cut in funding from the regional district.
But those are just details.
The cost/benefit analysis of the Nechako branch can be done with just three numbers. It costs about $200,000 per year to operate the branch, which works out to about five per cent of the library's annual budget but it contributes about 10 per cent of the library's total circulation of materials. In other words, the Nechako Branch provides twice the benefit that it costs.
If city council wants to cut five per cent from the library's annual budget, then it should do so and then stay out of the way and let the board of trustees it appointed find the best ways to make up the difference.
(Full disclosure: I sat as a library trustee on the Prince George Public Library Board for three years, having twice been appointed by city council to that position. I also worked at the library for two years as its communications and marketing coordinator.)
