- April 23, 2024
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Flagler County’s library system is doing well considering the amount of money put into it, but it’s time to expand, Jim Ulsamer, chairman of the Library Board of Trustees, told county commissioners at an April 3 meeting.
“We’re developing a plan,” Ulsamer said. “We need to finish it off and recognize it as an official plan, and stop living hand to mouth the way we’ve been doing.”
The county has long proposed expanding the main library branch on Palm Coast Parkway, which was built in 2000, as well as moving the smaller Bunnell branch of the library onto a parcel of land near the Government Services Building on State Road 100, and making it larger.
Flagler’s library system has in some ways suffered as a result of the county’s population growth, Ulsamer said, because of the way population affects metrics for state aid for local library systems. Flagler was the country’s fastest growing county in 2006 and 2007.
“The metrics for state aid to libraries were influenced by our growth, and we found ourselves dropped out of the state aid queue,” Ulsamer said. “We became for a while a little too proseperous, and that resulted in the loss of $225,000 in state aid annually,” for every year since. That’s about 20% of the library’s total budget, he said.
Then the real estate market collapsed, tax revenues fell, and “the library took its medicine along with everybody else,” with budget and staffing cuts, Ulsamer said.
The library did institute the passport photo program, generating $504,000 in revenue since its creation, and the library system began to recover in 2013, Ulsamer said.
"We believe that now is the time to look to the future," Ulsamer said. "We've been sort of in a maintenance mode, sort of spinning our wheels for the last 10 years."
There are a few potential projects that could enhance the library system, Ulsamer said: Replacing the Bunnell branch location with a larger one on or near S.R. 100; expanding the main library through a potential $1 million donation, and a $500,000 grant the library system has applied for; and adding a branch location to the Hammock area, possibly through rented space.
Ulsamer said he was concerned that costs associated with the recovery from Hurricane Matthew might be slow proposed library work, including adding additional parking spaces in front of the main library branch, and renovating the building's restrooms.
The county has the equivalent of 18.2 full-time library employees, Ulsamer said, when state standards recommend 60. St. Johns County has 72: It has about twice the county’s population, but four times its library staff.
Even if the county replaced the Bunnell branch of the library with a larger branch location, Ulsamer said, the increase in staff wouldn't come anywhere near 60 total full-time employees.
The library system is open 61 hours a week. “I think the taxpayers are certainly getting their money’s worth for the modest amount that is currently spent on library services,” Ulsamer said.
