The Nampa City Council held a budget workshop on April 15, 2026, at 7:30 AM, receiving presentations from the Nampa Public Library, the Nampa Civic Center, and the Nampa Family Justice Center. Department heads reported on recent achievements, usage statistics, financial challenges, and future priorities. Council members asked questions and offered direction on fee adjustments, capital improvements, and intergovernmental funding.
The workshop adjourned at approximately 8:45 AM, with the regular city council meeting to follow at 9:00 AM.
And create things instead of having to go out and buy it. Our 3D printer, I think, is a great example of that. We see often people putting in requests for things that they need to use around their home that they would rather 3D print for free instead of having to go out and buy that. And so I have a receipt here that shows a good example of this. A patron came in, checked out an item. It cost them $15. It would have cost them $15 had they gone and bought that themselves, but because they utilized the library, they were able to save that $15. Over the year, they've saved over a thousand dollars by using library resources. And because they've been a patron for many years, they've been able to save over $1,000. And so I think that's a great example of how again the library is stretching taxpayer dollars and providing them that resource. So as we looked at who's using the library, uh, we've seen that we have around 44,000 active cards in the community. Uh we mapped this here on a map in the uh handout that I provided you. If you turn to the next page, there's an enlarged uh picture of this map of NAMPA. So we've broken it out to the dist different districts so you can see how many library patrons are in each district. Uh we're about 10,000 below half of every NAMPA resident having a library card. Uh my goal would I would love to see us get to half. Um so as we look at that, and again, I I do have uh if if council would like to reach out after this, I do have a link to an interactive um map for this map, so you can actually drill down into individual uh neighborhoods and things. But what you typically see with these numbers and the fact that we're just low just barely below half of every NAMPA resident having a library card, do you see that nearly er or every neighborhood has nearly half of its residents having an active library card. Uh we do um our library cards do expire after two years and you have to renew them. And so definitely uh this is a pretty uh within the last two years an accurate view of how many people have it. And so I mean it's just amazing to me to be able to look at this and see how many people throughout our community are actively using our library on a regular basis. As you look at our statistics, as I mentioned, uh people coming into the library using the bookmobile or using our window uh book pickup. Um we've increased that by 11% uh last year. And again, that was uh an increase from the previous year in 2024 with 11% more people using the library. Um our circulation we increased by eight percent. Our reference desk, we actually changed uh how we record those numbers and because we made that change, we did see a decrease in it because we're not counting as many questions that come through because some were repetitive and things like that. And so I feel that this will provide us a more accurate number as we move forward. Um our library book our library and bookmobile program saw a 25% increase that's down from 30 from the previous year, but again, just showing that more more people are utilizing the library. The attendance um two programs that did not see an increase this year simply because we are starting to get to the point where we're to stay within fire code, we have to start uh putting up uh a reservation so that you have can come and be part of that program to keep us within the numbers of the fire code. And so just because we're uh confined by the space of the library and not being able to go beyond that for the safety, we didn't see any increase in the numbers, but we are seeing that uh that is starting to become an issue as more people are using the library. We're starting to have to say not as many people can come because we're limited on that space. Um our volunteer hours increase by 14%, and then our collection size is only up by 3% because last year we did do a large change to the collection, making it a lot easier for patrons to be able to find the collection by doing more of a uh uh um a genre-based title. So you can go in, you can see where the history is, you can see where the biography is, because not everyone knew the Dewey decimal system. So because we made this change, uh, we did see a decrease the previous year, and we're now rising up front uh this last year. And then study rooms obviously is a huge request from our patrons. They love those spaces, they love the ability to come in and find a quiet space to either study or have a meeting, and so we saw a 17% increase in that. Um for our org chart, we did we were able to decrease um the amount of employees by two percent this uh past year. We've taken two 19-hour positions and combined them into two 29-hour positions, which decrease that. But other than that, our uh positions have stayed the same. The the two areas where we have the most staff are public service, so serving the community, putting on those programs, answering the questions that patrons have, and then uh obviously our circulation area uh as books come back in, they need to be put back on the shelves, they need to be sent to other libraries. That is a uh huge uh department that we have well, I shouldn't say a huge department, but a huge aspect of what the library does on a daily basis, making sure that materials are put where they need to be so that patrons can either find them or get access to them. Um as I move into this next uh section, I do want to preface it by saying uh as we met with Mayor Hoganbohm, he made a request that we actually meet with the legal um and our finance department to kind of talk about how the budget of the library is is made. And so as I go into this, I do that at the request of the mayor. Just he wanted some answers or some questions answered, and so I provide that to council um upon his request. Council President. Yes. We want to save questions till the end. I'd like to hold the questions if you'll make a note. Thank you, please, and we'll continue to let Jared finish the presentation and then we'll we won't attack him, but we'll ask some questions. Um so the city receives funds uh taxpayer funds that are then levied to the different departments, one of those being the library.