The Library Board convened on December 3, 2025, for its final meeting of the year, where six members were present and Councilmember Johnson was excused. The primary focus was the adoption of the 2026 budget, which emphasized the restoration of lost services through innovative funding and collaboration with the Friends of the St. Paul Public Library. The meeting concluded with unanimous approval of the amended budget and expressions of gratitude for community partnerships.
But no, no, you have to do it. And now it's played with that. The library board is over to order. Roll call, please. Bowie? Here. Coleman. Here. Johnson. Kim? Here. Naker? Here. Yang? Here. Chair Joe's. Here. Six present, one absent, one excuse being Chair Johnson. Or I'm sorry, Councilmember Johnson. The first item on the agenda is minutes 25-47 approving November 1st, 2025 library board minutes. Alright, I'll take a motion from Council President Naker to approve the library board minutes. Is there any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone oppose. Six in favor, zero opposed. The minutes are adopted. The next item up on for discussion is resolution 25-1862 library board resolution adopting 2026 budget and requesting property tax financing. And I will turn it over to Director Hartman to say a few things about the library budget that we're adapting this year. Chair Jost, um, members of the library board, thanks for your continued support for the library this year in a in a difficult budget year. Um I've appreciated the opportunity to stay in conversation with you and um to um do what we can to make sure that we have community um access to libraries. So um a few additions um to the original proposed budget that I proposed, uh the mayor's proposed budget in September. Um I know you heard just as much as I did about how important library hours and open libraries are to our community members, and so I appreciate this budget reflecting uh adding back in uh the point eight library associate, which will allow us to keep the same regular hours at our Arlington Hills Library. Thank you so much uh for doing that. It means a lot to our staff, it means a lot to me, and I know most importantly, it means a lot to our community. So thank you for that. Um I also really appreciate uh the continued work on the library materials budget, as you've heard from us uh several times. Um the cost of our library materials continues to go up based on ebook formulas and some other things, and we want to make sure that as we build our library collections throughout our city that they represent our community, that our materials come in different languages and different formats so that folks can come into our our buildings and find materials that reflect their life and their experiences, and they can do that online as well. So I I wasn't exactly sure where we were with that amount. Um but I know we'll um I know Council and President Naker will speak to that, but I want to appreciate that. And I also um want uh to recognize that um that uh libraries like other city departments will have some um reductions uh in uh upcoming 2026. Uh those are reflected here as uh the same as they are in our proposed budget. So we will do our best in the library to continue to provide excellent service to our community members and be uh an equitable um intentional employer while we reduce uh some other expenses in order to keep the city budget and the library budget on track. So thank you for the opportunity to do that. I also want to take the opportunity to um speak to some additional funding that the friends of the St. Paul Public Library are adding to our library budget in 2026 in recognition of a particularly challenging budget time. Um the friends will be paying for our read brave program. We're shifting that out of the general fund so that takes some burden off of the city budget. Um as you know, they're gonna help us make up that gap in library materials with an additional collection support of 40,000.