Library News

Renovation Update

The YTS renovation is now 99.9% complete. Lo Destro will be here this week to re-level the floor around the moveable wall, which was not done correctly the first time. They will also be delivering the final key cores, so that all of the doors will be keyed to our existing key system. Then I expect to receive a final bill from them, and we can call this project complete!

Committee Meeting Schedule

As we discussed in November, I have put together a tentative committee meeting schedule and included it in your packet along with updated contact and committee lists. The assumption is that each month we would have a committee meeting immediately prior to our regular meeting. This would allow us to fit in all of our committees each year without adding a lot of extra meeting dates. This is not a schedule that needs to be formalized or approved. It can be changed at any time or disregarded entirely as we see fit.

Other Building & Grounds News

If we follow our new committee meeting schedule, the Building & Grounds Committee will meet in February to discuss a few projects including parking lot repairs, server room air conditioning, landscaping/lawn maintenance. I expect to have a number of recommendations from that Committee for your approval in February.

Budget News

I’m pretty happy to get 2022 behind us as it was a challenging year, to put it mildly. Property tax bills finally went out in November, and those revenues started coming in last month. As of this writing, we have received a little over $800,000 from those receipts, which is 94% of the total that we were expecting for the second half of 2021. Hopefully, the remaining $50,000 will be coming soon.

The next round of tax bills, for the first half of 2022, should be coming out later this month. The County has announced an extended due date for those to try to provide a little relief for those struggling to pay two bills back to back like this. I expect that most people will make those payments on time as escrow accounts should be up to date and hopefully most others have budgeted accordingly. I expect a higher rate of late payment than normal, but not so much as to create a significant disruption for us.

The loan from the City worked beautifully to allow us to continue paying some large construction bills while not knowing quite when to expect those tax revenues to come in. As of this writing, we have received 3 of the 4 scheduled payments from the City totaling $432,250.00. The City’s Finance Director does not recommend  that the City make the final payment on that loan since we are now receiving our tax revenues. It would just be trading money back and forth at this point. She has also indicated that our repayment should be in the form of one lump sum rather than installments. The promised repayment date is April 1st, and she recommends waiting until we get closer to that date just to be on the safe side. She has never led us wrong, so I recommend that we follow her advice and revisit the topic of repayment next month.

Other News

Programs and Events

Kris Kringle Market – The Kringle Market was another huge success this year. I haven’t heard official figures from the City on turnout, but I would bet that this year’s event was a record. For four hours on Friday, December 2nd and seven hours on Saturday the 3rd there were shoulder-to-shoulder crowds of people shopping, visiting Santa, and just generally having a great time. We had two tables at the event. We were handing out free cups of hot cocoa, as in years past. In addition to handing out 23 gallons of cocoa, we put out a tip jar and brough in almost $700 in donations. At our other table we were showing off some items made in the Zanardo FabLab and talking with people about what they can do with our new equipment. We had a drawing for six items made by staff. We sold 231 tickets for a total of $396. It was a wonderful event!

Jeannine’s Retirement – Jeannine officially left us on January 6th. We had a nice gathering to send her off that included a lunch for some of Jeannine’s closest friends and colleagues. I think it turned out to be a very nice event.

YTS Grand Opening – We celebrated the official grand opening of the newly renovated YTS department on January 14th. We had a ribbon cutting ceremony that included the mayor, a few aldermen, some of the Friends, the architects, and a some of our youth patrons. We also had a hot cocoa bar, face painter, crafts and just a good time overall playing and talking with people about our new space. We had about 130 people in attendance, and it was a very nice event.

Annual Tasks

It’s the time of year when I have various administrative tasks to do that will keep us officially recognized as a functioning as a public library for another year. Our annual Per Capita Grant application has been filed and accepted by the State. I have submitted our list of Statement of Economic Interest filers to the County. We are compiling statistics to submit our annual Illinet resource sharing and IPLAR statistical reports. Once those are complete, I will file our annual certification with the State.

Upcoming Events

  • January 19: Budget & Finance Committee Meeting at 6:30pm
  • January 19: Regular Board Meeting at 7pm
  • February 3-6: Friends of the Library Book Sale
  • February 10: Staff In-Service Day
  • February 16: Building & Grounds Committee Meeting at 6:30pm
  • February 16: Regular Board Meeting at 7pm