Local municipalities are on board with supporting the Northern Lights Library System's (NLLS) levy increase for next year, with some describing it as "nominal" compared to other expenses in 2020.
During their respective council meetings earlier this week, the MD of Bonnyville and City of Cold Lake approved a slight bump in the levy they pay annually to the NLLS, a governing body that oversees libraries in 54 municipalities, including the Town of Bonnyville and Cold Lake.
Each community pays an annual levy to the NLLS board, who are requesting an increase of 1.5 per cent for 2020.
According to Cold Lake Coun. Vicky Lefebvre, who is also chair of the library system's board, NLLS voted to raise the levy for the upcoming year at the end of November, now they’ve turned to the 54 municipalities within their system for approval.
“They’ve voted on the 1.5 per cent increase, but they need two-thirds of the municipalities to approve. If they don’t, they have to go back and reconsider,” she explained during the city’s meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 10.
The next morning, the MD of Bonnyville sat down for their own council meeting and reviewed the financial impact the change could have, and agreed the increase from 2019's $10.30 per capita to next year's $10.46 was reasonable.
"That amounts to $950 within the MD of Bonnyville. We believe this makes sense," CAO Luc Mercier stated.
In total, the MD is expecting to pay $121,974 for 2020.
Coun. Marc Jubinville said, "It's a good organization. It's pretty amazing what they have done for the whole region, and it's a big region."
Cold Lake council described the request as “nominal” when it comes to the bigger picture. They will see a slight increase from last year’s $5.15 per capita to $5.23 in 2020.
Based on the amendment, the city will pay NLLS roughly $78,200 in 2020, just shy of $1,200 more than 2019.
City Coun. Bob Buckle wondered if they should offer their support after deferring so many funding requests to January earlier in their meeting.
“I wonder if we give a letter of support, then of course, it’s a given that the city will come back and approve the measure if adopted by the library system. I’m wondering, with everything that we have given the local economic time for our taxpayers, the loss of ID 349, which is potentially a huge funding impact, I don’t think we should just simply approve an increase just because it’s being asked.”
He continued, “I think we have our own issue on any increase, and it doesn’t matter if we’re talking utilities, the library, or donations to groups, when we’re pushing everything to January because we really don’t know what we’re looking at.”
Describing the amount as not “a hill to die on,” Buckle outlined his concern of the notion council is expressing by not digging into the issue further.
"I just worry about the message it sends out sometimes when we just say ‘yeah, we’re okay with this increase,' without knowing whether it’s even needed,” he stated.
Cold Lake Coun. Kirk Soroka felt the increase wasn’t a “break the bank amount of money,” and, similar to his MD counterparts, was in favour of supporting it.
“I view the library as the heartbeat of the community, and I support it. We’ve seen the numbers of the people using it has increased because of the downturn in the economy, and we keep that library robust and thriving, it’s not a bad investment.”
“The NLLS has been given a message, I think, by all of the municipalities, because the days of getting the three and four per cent increases are over. Getting it down to 1.5 per cent, I think we sent a message and they got it loud and clear,” stated Mayor Craig Copeland.
He added, “I’m supportive of it, I think we will have bigger fish to fry than $1,200 if we don’t get some kind of funding."
The Town of Bonnyville supported the levy bump at their Nov. 12 meeting, and are expecting to pay roughly $33,500 to the NLLS next year.