Photo by Curtis Galbraith.

By Curtis Galbraith

City Hall

GPPL looking for funding increase from city hall

Oct 18, 2023 | 3:32 PM

Officials with the Grande Prairie Public Library say that services would have to be reduced unless the library gets a funding increase from the city.

A delegation from the library went before council’s Monday meeting to ask for a 10.3 per cent funding increase for 2024 and three per cent for 2025.

That works out to $172,329 for next year and just $55,362 for the year after.

Library board chair Debbie Normington says a large part of this would go towards staffing, but there are other needs too.

“The cost of goods, the cost of subscriptions and the cost of books themselves, audiobooks, everything has increased in price because of inflation just like everything else.”

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The presentation also said that staffing levels have dropped to 20.49 full-time equivalents compared to 30 a decade ago.

Normington says if there is no increase, services will have to be reduced.

“Over the years, we have reduced staffing, so we are attempting to do the same with less, which I don’t think is unusual in funded organizations where you do the best you can with whatever you get.”

Normington says council had some good suggestions for them.

“The idea of a grant writer is a good idea, so we’ll explore that further. Those kinds of things are good ideas that maybe could work for us.”

Council referred the request to November’s 2024 budget deliberations. Those will take place November 15-17.