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Guthrie library director prioritizes staff pay and digital services as budget season begins
Summary
As budget season begins, the Guthrie Public Library director told the advisory board the library will prioritize staffing (about 80% of spending), maintain a modest materials budget (10–15%) and keep strong digital services, while reviewing circulation and collection age to target purchases.
Guthrie Public Library's director, Cameron, told the library advisory board on May 21 that staffing will remain the library's top budget priority as she prepares the 2025 proposal for the city manager and council.
"Over 80% of it goes to staff here at the library," Cameron said during her budget review, noting the city provides most of the library's revenue and that a city council decision to set a salary floor between 2022 and 2023 produced a large jump in the library's budget that year.
Cameron said the library spends roughly 10–15% of its budget on materials and that about a third of collection spending now goes to electronic materials such as Libby and Canopy. She told board members she will submit the detailed numbers on the city calendar the board uses and that some state reporting uses a different fiscal year, which explains apparent discrepancies in charts presented to the board.
The director reviewed turnover rates from the catalog: teen nonfiction and comics are high-circulation categories, adult nonfiction shows the lowest turnover (around 1.03) and the library's audio and DVD collections skew older — DVDs averaged about seven years old, Cameron said. She said the library has begun modest investments to refresh audio and device holdings and that friends and donations help offset collection purchases.
Board members pressed Cameron on how Guthrie compares to similar libraries; she said she benchmarks by population and will provide comparative pie charts. Cameron also walked the board through the rationale for the library's collection strategy, saying the staff aims to buy materials that will circulate locally rather than mirror other libraries' lists.
The board did not take a formal vote at the meeting; Cameron said she would incorporate the board's funding priorities and staff recommendations into the numbers she submits to the city manager and council.
The director said she will prepare a September budget and expects to return with more detailed charts and a proposed allocation that maintains staffing as the highest priority while targeting digital resources and carefully selected physical materials.
