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Escondido library board to ask City Council for higher collections funding after per‑capita shortfall
Summary
Trustees said they will ask the City Council to raise the library's collections budget or tie it to an index, citing staff data showing Escondido spent about $163 per capita on collections in 2024 versus a median of roughly $230 among comparable cities; trustees plan a short slide presentation during the councils' boards‑and‑commissions update.
Trustees said they will ask the City Council to increase the library’s collections (circulation) budget or consider indexing it to inflation and usage. Reno, who compiled the statistics for the board, told trustees the library’s 2024 collections spending measured about $163 per capita while the median among 43 comparable cities was “about 2.3 something” (roughly $230 per capita), a gap the board said limits the library’s ability to meet rising demand.
Reno flagged that digital circulation has been steadily growing and that the last two cycles (December and January) showed higher growth in digital than in print. “We’re still at around 20% of our overall circulation being digital versus 80% being physical,” Reno said, adding OverDrive growth and continued Link+ service use as drivers of demand.
Board members cited previous policy changes that reduced fee‑based revenues — including elimination of rental charges for CDs and DVDs and a move to automatic renewals during the pandemic — and said those changes shifted revenue away from the library to the city general fund. One trustee proposed that the council consider indexing the collections allocation so the budget better tracks inflation and usage rather than requiring repeated ad‑hoc requests.
Reno also noted an anticipated Link+ cost increase tied to courier and regional cooperative costs: roughly $3,000 in increased support for courier service and about $6,000 in regional cooperative (Sarah) dues; Reno said he has been absorbing some of those operational costs in the current year but said future budget decisions may need to account for them.
The board plans a short slide deck for the council presentation (boards generally have a 10‑minute window). Trustees agreed to submit the deck by noon on the day of the council meeting so the city clerk can preload it for presentation.
The board did not take a formal vote on a specific appropriation at this meeting; members directed staff to finalize the slides and data to support the council request.
