Bay County library leaders outline services and urge support for six-year millage renewal

At the April 14 Bay County Board of Commissioners meeting, Bay County Library Director Kirsten Wellnitz and Assistant Director and head of finances Kevin Ayala presented system statistics and budget projections and urged commissioners to consider a six-year renewal of the library millage.

Wellnitz told the commission the county library system operates four branches and a bookmobile that serves more than 45 stops monthly, and described programs for children, teens and adults designed to support literacy, job searches and community connection. "We are the only place that is welcome and open to everyone," Wellnitz said, describing services from story times grounded in Ready to Read Michigan principles to a memory lab and a "library of things" that loans items such as radon detectors and graphing calculators.

Ayala framed the Millage request as central to the system's operations. He said the library's 2026 operating budget is $7,000,000 and that the millage accounts for about 84% of overall revenue. "Yes. Because we still are dependent on 16% of other revenue on top of the 84% of the millage," Ayala said, arguing the system would remain reliant on that funding stream. He listed other revenue sources as penal fines, investment income, state aid (about 1.6%) and donations or user fees making up the remainder.

Ayala gave a breakdown of expenditures—personnel services at 62.6%, supplies at 2.2% and other program and material purchases comprising the remainder—and said the system has an operating fund balance of roughly $5,000,000 and an estimated building maintenance need of about $4,700,000 if planned replacements and repairs occur. He said the library board approved "option 1" for renewal and that the library would ask the county commission to place a six-year renewal on the ballot at the Headlee rollback rate of 1.7399.

Commissioners asked detailed questions about staffing and operations. Ayala said the system lists 115 positions overall but clarified that it employs 38 full-time staff, 28 part-time staff, 19 shelving pages and 27 on-call substitutes, and described a lean administrative structure that includes one IT position and shared managers for some branches. "For a system our size, $7,000,000 budget, we have 1 IT guy... we're probably foolish for doing that, but we've managed and it's working," Ayala said.

The board moved, supported and approved a motion to receive the presentation by voice vote. Chair (speaker 2) said he expects the full board to consider approval of the millage renewal at the May meeting. No formal vote on the millage was taken at the April 14 session.