This year’s budget process was a little different than in years past. This year, I got to consult our Strategic Plan, which shaped our budget requests. I considered seven specific activities of our Strategic Plan while preparing our budget.
Three of these activities ensure we have adequate funding for our physical and online collections, one ensures we have enough to refresh our play area in the Youth Services Department, and two ensure our staff can attend continuing education training. The seventh activity: “Research and implement the steps necessary to expand our hours to 55 hours per week…” had me looking at our staffing in each area of the library.
Ideally, we will be open 55 hours (instead of our current 43 hours) each week by the end of June in 2022. To do this, we need to make sure we have enough staff to cover all of our desks while we’re open. There are several steps necessary to make this transition happen, but the big one we took this fiscal year was to ask for another full-time position.
Having a sixth full-time position will do a lot for our library. It will ensure consistent and excellent service in our Computer Lab, which will free up staff in other parts of the library to concentrate on the tasks of their particular desks. It will also add an additional voice and increased talent to the services we currently offer. These bonuses will make the library stronger and better able to serve our community.
Ultimately, our goal with all of our services, including the staff we employ, is to make your Pryor Library the best library we can. Our community deserves the library services and assistance they need, not just what the staff has time for. With increased hours and increased staffing to go with it, I think we’ll be headed in the right direction to make that happen.