ST. PETERS, Mo. — On Tuesday, the St. Charles City-County Library Board met again to discuss the financial issues that still could lead to the closure of libraries.
At a special meeting a month ago, St. Charles City-County Library CEO Jason Kuhl said the library would need to close three branches to help with its financial situation. The proposal was met with several protests from the community and resolutions against it from city and county councils in the area.
Dozens showed up to protest the closure Tuesday at the board meeting at the Spencer Road Branch.
“We would much rather have our library branches, open branches, that we can walk to, that kids can come for classes, adults can come for classes, they can come for story hour, they can come to get out of the heat without spending money, rather than have an e-book right when we want it. We are readers, we’re used to waiting,” St. Charles County resident and former library staffer Laura Marie Olesnicki said.
Olesnicki said she thinks a lot of the problems stem from the current CEO.
“I believe he is leading our library district into a very bad place, and I believe the rest of the public does as well. Our trust has been eroded based on his decisions,” Olesnicki said.
The board unanimously passed a resolution to table the library closure proposal indefinitely, created a space for listening sessions to engage more with patrons and directed the administration to work with the board on new proposals to address financial issues.
But closures could still happen in the future.
Jason Schroeder said the resolution made him feel better about the situation, but he is still questioning the board and the administration.
“I think a lot of people in the community would feel even better if they just voted no on the proposal and took these potential closures completely off the table,” Schroeder said.
He said he’s been looking into the financial issues and certain things just don’t add up.
“The biggest thing that I found was there was a slide that the CEO presented at the special meeting that was really one of his big points in the proposal to close the branches," Schroeder said. "And that was the expenditures overtaking revenues. And come to find out the chart that he used was based on budget projections rather than actual expenditures and revenues. And if you took the financials as they are year to date, at the end of last month, there's more than an $8 million difference between those two figures."
Schroeder said the numbers don’t show the district as close to running a deficit either.
“If you go back and you look at the last four or five years' budgets that are available on the library's website, the only place you'll find a deficit is in the CEO’s budget. By the end of the year, we've had multimillion-dollar surpluses in three of those last five years. And the reality seems to be painting a different picture than what the administration has been telling the public,” Schroeder said.
Kuhl said at Tuesday’s meeting that property taxes provided 94% of the library’s total revenue. And at the end of Fiscal Year 2023, the library was subject to tax abatements from several cities, and collectively, the library lost $595,365.
“Operating costs growing more quickly than revenue is a marker of an organization that is on an unsustainable path,” Kuhl said, making it necessary to do something to address financial issues.
The latest document provided at Tuesday's meeting listed all of the various cost-saving measures the board has tried, including the reduction of library hours.
The board said listening sessions could begin in July, but it is still working out procedures.
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