Maggie Keir

LIS 770
6/14/13


Oak Park Public Library Budget and Financial Analysis

Oak Park, Illinois is a large village west of Chicago. The main Oak Park Public
Library and its two branches serve their population of patrons. The Oak Park Public
Library budget and budget summary can be found online at the official Oak Park
Public Library website.
Budget Technique
The technique employed by the Oak Park Public Library is the line-item
budgeting technique. This is apparent from the description on the website which
identifies the budget as a line-item budget. This is the most common type of
library budget (Stewart, 2013.) It looks at the amount of money spent in each
category, but does not address the outcomes of spending (Stewart, 2013.)
The Oak Park Public Library Budget can be divided into two broad
categories, Expenses and Revenue. The Expenses area of the budget is then further
divided into smaller sub-categories. These sub-categories include Information
Technology, Public Services, Facilities Management, Capital Expenditures, Library
Materials, Support Services, and Personnel.
Sub-categories are further broken down to specifics. For example, under
Library Materials, print materials are given their own line. The dollar amount
allocated to print materials in 2013 is $405,500.00.
This method of budget organization is consistent with the description of line-
item budgets provided by Stueart and Moran.

Expenses
There are seven expense categories in the Oak Park Public Library budget.
The greatest monetary expense category, totaling $5,196,950 in expenses, is
Personnel. Of that amount, the majority goes to payroll, including salaries, wages
and benefits. Payroll is $5,110,950. The rest of the Personnel expenses falls under
Professional Development, and includes recruitment, training, travel, tuition
reimbursement, conferences, and dues. The total for professional development is
$86,000.
The next largest expense category, perhaps not surprisingly, is Library
Materials. Library Materials is broken down into several line items. Print Materials
are still the greatest library material expense at $405,500. Following that is Audio
and visual materials at $241,000, Digital collections at $119,500, Online tools at
$100,000, and Devices at $10,000.
Capital Expenditures, totaling $644,500 is the third largest area of expense
on the budget. This category contains five line-items. Equipment is $165,000,
Furnishings are $30,000, Technology is $39,000, Building Improvements are
$400,500, and Special projects are $10,000.
Following Capital Expenditures, the next greatest area of expense is Facilities
Management. It totals $508,100, and is divided between two categories; Facility
Supplies and Facilities Services. These two categories are then broken down further
into separate items that all have to do with maintenance of library grounds and
buildings.
Support Services is the fifth largest area of expenses. The category contains
four subcategories that together total $400,200. The subcategories are Marketing,
Collections (which has to do with Cataloging and ILL payments), and
Administration. The final subcategory is Other Support Services, which covers
miscellaneous support services, including Collaboration Early Childhood Education
and Telephone/Communication to name a couple.
Information Technology is the second to last expense category. It contains
just four items, Software, Hardware, Supplies and accessories, and Service contracts
and fees. The total expenses for the category are $216,500.
The least costly expense area is Public Services, which is a total expense of
$102,500. Public Services is split between Virtual Services and Programming.
Virtual Services includes website development and supplies, as well as
subscriptions. Programming includes Adult, Young Adult, and Childrens
programming, and programming at the two branch libraries. It also includes the
Summer Reading Program and the Idea Box, an innovative space in the main library
lobby.
Revenue
Oak Park Public Library has a number of revenue sources. The majority, an
overwhelming ninety-four percent of the revenue comes from Oak Park taxes. The
line item budget breaks the revenue from taxes into three categories; Property
Taxes, for operating, Property Taxes, TIF distributions, and Corp. Property
Replacement Tax. The total amount of revenue from all three property tax lines is
$6,852,171.
Fines, Service Charges, and fees make up the next greatest source of revenue,
with $195,000. The Illinois Per Capita Grant provides the third largest source of
revenue, with $53,000. The Friends of the Oak Park Public Library is the fourth
largest source of revenue for the library, with $50,000 in donations.
Parking lot revenue follows with $38,000, and photocopier and printer fees
follow that with $35,000. Community Fund Endowments provides $25,000 in
revenue.
There are several smaller sources of revenue, sources under $25,000.
Interest and Rentals-Library Space bring in $12,000 each. Lost Books
Reimbursed/Reciprocal Borrowing provides $5,000 in revenue.
There are three revenue sources listed in the budget with $0 revenue. These
are Pass Through Revenue, Grants, and Gifts revenue.
Variable and Fixed Costs
The Oak Park Public Library budget does not explicitly state which costs are
fixed and which are variable within the budget. As fixed and variable costs were
discussed in class, one can venture to guess which costs likely changed, and which
remained constant (Stewart, 2013). Salaries, interest, wages, and insurance were
likely fixed costs for the library (Stewart, 2013.) Variable costs could have included
raw materials and labor, which is certainly possible given that maintenance of the
main library were included in the budget. It may be that the costs exceeded
expectations.


Budget Narrative
Oak Park Public Librarys Budget Summary is extremely useful in explaining
the budget. It begins with a paragraph that informs the reader that the library
Board of Trustees approved this 2013 budget near the end of 2012. The document,
in addition to introducing the budget, summarizes the changes that have occurred at
the main library branch since it opened in 2003.
There is a section entitled Whats the Financial Bottom Line for You, the
Taxpayer? below the first paragraph. This breaks down sources of revenue for Oak
Park patrons. It says that the budget is $7.9 million. It says that the budget
increased 4.9 percent over 2012 because of a 3.49 percent increase in property tax
revenue. This increase has brought the average cost to households up an additional
$10.02.
The rest of the summary is under the heading 10 Years at the Main Library:
More than 5 Million Served. The first section is Capital Projects. It explains that
library use over the past decade has created a need for repairs and updates to
library facilities. The next section is Operating Expenses. The section is divided up
into six subsections including Personnel, Materials, Facilities Management,
Information Technology, Events and Virtual Services, and Supplies, Marketing, &
Insurance. Each subsection explains the major costs incurred by each area.
The total expenses listed in the budget summary do not exactly match the
total expenses on the line-item budget. The amount listed on the budget summary is
$7,300,671. The amount that can be found on the line-item budget is $7944,750.
This discrepancy can be understood once one realizes that the capital expenditures,
which total $644,500, the exact difference, are included in the line-item budget,
which is included in the operating budget. Typically, since operating budgets are
more short-term, capital is not included (Stewart 2013.) This could be confusing to
the average patron who could look at the summary and budget.
The final section addresses Revenue. It says fees and fines are kept low, and
that most of the revenue derives from property taxes.
For the most part, the budget summary successfully summarizes and
validates expenses to Oak Park patrons. It could make the difference between the
operating budget and capital more clear, but its detail of each expense section was
quite understandable.













References
Oak Park Public Library. (2013). Budget 2013. Retrieved from
http://oppl.org/sites/default/files/2013 library budget.pdf.

Oak Park Public Library. (2013). 2013 Budget Summary. Retrieved from
http://oppl.org/sites/default/files/2013-Budget-Summary_0.pdf

Moran, B.B., Stueart, R.D., & Morner, C.J. (2013). Library and information
center management (8
th
ed.). Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Stewart, C. (2013). Financial Management [Power Point slides].