ELPL Board Approves Budget Recommendation
The East Lansing Public Library team is keeping busy, as the city is in the thick of budget season..
At its March 19 meeting, the Library Board of Trustees approved the proposed library budget for fiscal year (FY) 2026, Teen Services and Schools Liaison Storm Hawthorn spoke about teen initiatives and the board discussed the upcoming Books, Bites & Bids event.
Fiscal Year 2026 Budget Discussion
Director Kevin King collaborated with Budget & Accounting Analyst Owen Valley to create the budget and said, “He was instrumental in helping, as I was new to the process.”
The FY26 budget is roughly $3.35 million, which is similar to the estimated final FY25 budget.
The library’s biggest source of revenue is property taxes, which are projected to provide about $2.69 million in FY26. The library also figures to receive a considerable amount from intergovernmental revenue, about $98,000, and roughly $277,000 from community support.
The library’s expenses fall in three different categories: Personnel services ($1,999,935), operating costs ($922,660) and capital outlay ($388,000).
The FY26 budget was built based on the city’s financial forecast, which projects the property tax base will grow 3.1% in FY26, less than the 5% growth seen in FY25. While the lower rate of growth in property tax revenue seems discouraging for the ELPL budget, Valley explained the property tax revenue estimate is conservative.
“It’s a more conservative estimate for property taxes, which is better for budgetary purposes to ensure we don’t get ourselves in trouble by running a deficit fund balance,” Valley explained. “It’s technically not a decrease in property tax revenue, but rather a lower increase than we’ve seen in prior years. It increased 5-6% the past few years, which is not a sustainable number to budget for, so we used the forecasted property tax increase from the city’s forecast that was reviewed last January.”
The big reduction in the FY25 budget is the removal of the deputy director position, which had been budgeted at $130,000–$140,000 but was ultimately not feasible due to funding constraints. Not filling this role brought down personnel costs.
Board Vice President Ameenah Asante asked why there is a decrease in spending on employee training and travel.
“I’m pausing here because, in previous years, there was a desire for employees to travel, and last year was rewarding because people got to do that,” Asante said.
In FY25, employee training and travel received $23,041.42, and the FY26 budget proposes $12,550.00 for this category.
King explained that decreasing travel and training expenses is an intentional choice for several reasons, including that securing grant money for community education is easier than for other areas. Additionally, Friends of the Library agreed to contribute a restricted donation to this fund, although the exact amount is still being worked out.
“If any of these categories cost less during the year, the board would like to see some of that be transferred to employee training and travel, but we won’t know until we get there,” Trustee Polly Synk said.
At the end of FY26, the fund balance projects to be about $1.6 million. The library’s reserve funds are important because personnel costs are going up, largely due to increased spending on healthcare costs. The city recently had to switch healthcare providers for its employees because its previous provider left the industry.
Property taxes that make up most of the library’s funding are not projected to keep pace with the increased personnel costs. However, because of the healthy fund balance maintained by ELPL, “there’s no risk in the near term of running out of money,” Valley said.
Every library director has their own way of deciding the set amount in the fund balance to keep on hand. King indicated he prefers to have enough reserve funds for ELPL to operate for six months.
Teen Initiatives
Teen Services and Schools Liaison Librarian Storm Hawthorn gave a presentation on the teen engagement initiatives happening at ELPL and local schools.
As a way to help build relationships with students, the library offers snacks every day of the school week and has tracked over 280 teens who utilized the program since October.
Hawthorn discussed the in-house events included as teen services, like Tween Tuesdays—temporarily held on Mondays—where there are games and crafts available for tweens, Teen Wind-Down Wednesdays, Teen Movie Matinee Thursdays, and Nintendo Switch Super Smash Bros League every Friday.
Once a month, Hawthorn holds a teen bingo series with a different theme, and winners receive a candy bar.
“They get excited about that, they are very food motivated,” Hawthorn joked.
Teen services also offers outreach programs, including a graphic novel book club on the second Tuesday of the month, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) activities on the first Friday for middle schoolers, hosts National Honor Society volunteers, and Book Bites Wednesday for middle schoolers.
Book, Bites & Bids 2025
Books, Bites & Bids will celebrate and recognize the work libraries, librarians and library workers do. The annual event will take place on Friday, April 11 from 5:30 P.M. to 8:00 P.M.
It will be a night filled with live music, food and a silent auction, with proceeds going toward initiatives to support local history resources. The event ties into the theme “Drawn to the Library,” highlighting the importance of libraries in the community.
Host and producer of 90.5 Classical on WKAR, Linda Kernohan, will be the emcee for the event. Some auction basket bids include: Zap Zone Family Fun Passes, Williamston Theatre Tickets and overnight stays at both The Graduate and Marriott hotels in East Lansing.