Town council approved the Irricana and Rural Municipal Library’s 2013 budget during its regular meeting, March 4.
The budget includes $80,718.73 in expenses for the upcoming year and $81,925.54 in revenues.
Total payroll for the library, the largest single expense, is $38,115.53.
In terms of revenues, the library receives $53,131.54 in government contributions, including a requisition of $23,240 from the Town. It also receives $19,056 in funding from the provincial government and $5,096 from Rocky View County.
The requisition from the Town increased this year, according to Town CAO Alvin Melton.
“Our budget, it’s on a per capita basis and we increased the per capita amount to the library,” he said.
The library is largely volunteer run, said library manager Elysse Reicheneder. The library’s 12 volunteers and library board put in 2,623 hours in 2012.
“Our volunteers are a major part of our library organization,” she said. “We definitely consider them part of our team here.”
In her annual presentation to Irricana Town council, Reicheneder said 6,378 people used the library in 2012 and the library hosted a total of 182 programs, bringing in 967 people.
“We had great success this year with our summer reading program,” said Reicheneder. “I’ve been here for almost three years and each year we’ve done that program we’ve seen an increase; this year we had 40 participants, 30 children and 10 teens.”
Reicheneder is also proud of the partnership between the library and the Irricana firefighters, who assisted with the winter reading program that has continued into 2013.
“The kids loved it, firefighters had a great time, and overall it’s a success. We’re looking at carrying that on into this year and trying to incorporate that into our summer reading program,” she said.
Another success of the library’s past year was the purchase of 1,200 books; Reicheneder got everything she could out of the $500 grant received from the Rocky View East Recreation Board.
She did this by attending a gently-used book sale, picking up books for minimal cost.
“We try to get something for everyone, children, juvenile, young adult, adult and any non-fiction that we can find,” she said.
The library currently has 8,387 items in its collection, including 238 non-print items such as DVDs and audio books.
