How We're Funded

The vast majority of our funding (94 percent), comes from property taxes and a portion of vehicle ownership taxes and other county assessments. In 1986, voters in Jefferson County approved a Library mill levy of up to 3.5 mills. (A mill levy is the tax rate that is applied to the assessed value of property. One mill represents one dollar for every $1000 of assessed property value.) The Library has not had an increase in its mill levy for 25 years, and it's increasingly difficult to manage a 21st century library on 20th century funding.

Our Operating Budget

• Revenues: Projected revenues for 2011 total approximately $25.6 million and reflect funding we receive from taxes and other sources to support the library. Primary sources of revenue include a percentage of property taxes and vehicle registration fees collected by the County (94%); fines and fees (4%); and other revenue, including investment income, contributions and donations (2%).



• Operating Expenses: Projected operating expenses for 2011 reflect planned expenses to maintain our collection and provide Library resources and services. Major expenses include wages and benefits (62%); library books and materials (14%); supplies (9%); contract services and other charges (10%); and internal transactions, i.e., the money we pay Jefferson County for access to County Human Resources and other services (5%).
  
  

You can see that a majority of our revenue comes from taxes. However, when you calculate the average annual property tax bill, it comes to approximately $5.35 a month - well below the cost of a single book, movie or music CD. To fund the maximum mill levy would cost the average homeowner an additional $5.47 a year, or less than $0.50 per month.*
*Source: How Property Taxes Are Calculated, Jefferson County Assessor's web site

A majority of our expenses, or 62 percent, goes to pay wages and benefits for our employees. While staffing is a big percentage of our expenses, JCPL is one of the most leanly staffed libraries in the nation. If you compare Colorado libraries serving populations of 200,000 or more, JCPL has one of the lowest ratios of full-time equivalent employees (FTEs) per 1,000 people served. JCPL's ratio is 0.38, well below the average of 0.65, less than half that of Douglas County's 0.81, and about one third of Arapahoe County's 1.07.

Library	LSA Pop. (000s)	Total Staff (FTE)	Ratio
Arapahoe Library District	217.6	232.4	1.07
Douglas County Libraries	285.5	232.5	0.81
Denver Public Library	600.2	421.0	0.70
High Plains Library District	235.5	192.0	0.82
Pikes Peak Library District	571.3	308.6	0.54
Jefferson County Public Library	534.5	203.0	0.38
Rangeview	337.8	88.8	0.26
AVERAGE			0.65

Source: Library Research Service 2010 (Latest available data)

Our Fund Balance

Just as families save money to pay for college, home improvements, and other big-ticket items, we save money to pay for repair and maintenance of our existing libraries, to make needed upgrades to our computer software and systems, and to anticipate and meet the changing needs of Jefferson County residents as populations and needs for library services grow. Over the past 24 years, JCPL has accumulated a "savings account" (referred to as our fund balance) which totaled approximately $11.5 million at the beginning of 2011.

We are responsible for protecting and preserving taxpayer assets, including 10 libraries, our Library Service Center, which houses our collection in-take and administrative computer systems, and several outreach vehicles and delivery trucks. We use our fund balance to maintain our buildings and to invest in technology for patrons and the Library. In the past few years, we've invested $1.6 million to build the Online Library and to upgrade the Library Service Center and the Standley Lake, Belmar and Golden libraries. These upgrades have enabled us to provide, among other things, additional computer stations and WiFi service to meet the increased demand from patrons, additional self-service stations to allow staff more time to meet patrons' needs and more convenient access to library materials.

In 2011, we're doing everything we can to preserve our fund balance. We want to make sure we have enough money to repair and maintain our buildings while we wait for the economy to recover. To that end, we're suspending all capital projects (including planned remodels of the Evergreen and Columbine libraries) unless they are critical to operations or provide a meaningful return on investment. We are also taking on debt at very favorable interest rates – as opposed to spending down our savings -- to fund critical capital projects in 2011.

We're borrowing approximately $6.3 million to complete key capital projects in 2011, including:

• making needed repairs and upgrades to the Lakewood building,
  
  
• installing automatic book sorters, and
  
  
• investing in environmental and other enhancements to improve operational efficiencies and reduce energy costs.

These projects are expected to cost a total of $6.3 million, which must be repaid (with interest) over the next ten years. However, by the end of 2011 we expect to capture nearly enough in operational savings to pay the annual debt service, so in terms of return on investment, these projects will practically pay for themselves.

At the beginning of 2011, we had approximately $11.5 million in our fund balance. However, of that $3.6 million is held in reserve to meet legal and other policy requirements. We really only have about $8.0 million available to invest in capital projects.

No one can predict when this economy will begin to improve, and we believe that maintaining a financial cushion is a prudent approach to managing this uncertainty. It costs us about $540,000 a year to do routine maintenance on our facilities – including regular repairs to plumbing, lighting, buildings, parking lots, etc. We also have a number of libraries, including Evergreen and Columbine, which are due for major updates/renovations. In addition, we must keep up with the growing demand for computers and bandwidth. When you look at future capital requirements, our fund balance doesn't look that big!

We believe our fund balance, and the projects it supports, are critical to our ability to meet the needs of Jefferson County taxpayers both now and in the future.

Up Next: Growing Your Investment