"Create a budget" Report Submitted by Public Library Director Judy Wondra, August 2008

CE Project Agreement for II-E-3: Create a Budget

Purpose: Create an annual budget in a spreadsheet that meets the requirements for the system.

Eligible participants: Librarian Judy Wondra and board members James Vance, Nedra Blazek, Patty Stueder, Dorothy Brinson and Dick Schaffer.

Core skill: II-E-3 "develop, prepare, justify, administer and evaluate a budget based on short and long range goals."

The librarian and board members met three times in July to prepare the budget.

At the first meeting they read pages 59-68 in Trustees and Librarians Working Together. They also read pages 93-105 in Working Together: How-to Manual and also read the Budget Issues for Library Trustees, an essay by the Kansas Library Trustee Assoc. Reading these pages gave the board members some interesting issues in working on the budget for the coming year 2009. The township trustee did not attend this meeting.

At the second meeting they discussed the budget in more detail as to what the present utilities are running and what they predicted for next year. They discussed each line item in our budget and everyone projected that the prices will be going up so they decided to ask for more money from the township to cover these costs for 2009. There were several items that were increased such as supplies, insurance, building maintenance, mileage, payroll taxes, capital purchases and automation. The library treasurer of the township funds then printed up the budget for 2009. The township trustee did not attend this meeting.

At the third meeting in July the board members including the township trustee, Randy Oeser, attended this meeting. The library board members studied the final budget and indicated to Randy Oeser, the township trustee, that the library board will indeed ask for more money for an increase from from $23, 680.00 in 2008 to an increase of $26,965.00 in 2009, a difference of $3,285.00 noting that last year in 2007 we did not receive the full amount of monies from the county. We were short $500.00 at the end of the year.

The final budget was then presented to the township trustee and the chairman of the library will meet at the township meeting with the other township board members to discuss the library's budget and answer any questions that the township board members may have in regard to the library's budget for 2009. This meeting will be held in August. After this meeting the township board will present our budget and the township's budget to the county.

This report was submitted by Judy Wondra, Library Director of the Independent Township Library in Claflin, Kansas