rage i of i
Antonio Martinez
Subject: FW: questions from commissioner court
-----Original Message-----
From: David Lipscomb [mailto:jdlip@email.com]
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2006 9:56 PM
To: Antonio Martinez
Subject: questions from commissioner court
Antonio,
Commissioner Nicholson sent the following and as he suggested it might be good to add an agenda
item for the April 18 meeting.
Thanks,
John David Lipscomb
:*********sr****~****************r*******xs**********~**~*~******~***xr********:
Today, in the Commissioners' Court meeting I received some direction from the Court on
representing Kerr County to the Library Board. The Court has asked me to report answers to
these questions:
1. What products or services does the BHML provide that could be fee-based without
jeopardizing state funding? ~ ` ~4"~~
2. What programs, products or services does the BHML provide that are not traditional core Apr" `~~
library functions? .
3. What potential synergistic benefits and cost reductions could be achieved by the BHML ~,, a~
entering into joint ventures with other local libraries? ~.`
4. What would be the impact of charging BHML users who are not Kerrville residents a fee for
using the library? -><zs t y~c ~ti ~'~~ ~ ~~^ ~~
5. How many library cards are currently in use? What would be the benefts of re-issuing all
library cards - re-registering all library users?
6. What changes in BHML operations and staffing would be indicated in order to meet a 2006-
2007 budget of $620,000 ($13.50 per capita)?
I suggest that we develop - or decide how to develop -answers to these questions in our next
Board meeting. We need to have the answers by the June 30 deadline for submitting a
proposed budget to Commissioners' Court.
Dave Nicholson
/18/06
rage i of r
Antonio Martinez
Subject: FW: questions from commissioner court
Rule 1.72 of the Rules for Adrrenistering the Library System Act (texas Administrative Code, Title 13, Part I,
Chapter 1) lists allowable charges and fees. It also lists which services must be provided free of charge.
1. We currently charge all allowable fees except for parking and reservation of materials. Parking fees would be
impossible to enforce without a gated mechanism or parking lot attendant (additional expense), Philosophically I
am opposed to fees for reserving materials, espedally since the public now has the ability to do their own from
their home computers. We could increase fees, but even doubling all of our current fees would probably only
bring in $20,000 in additional revenue, maybe less.
2. The services we offer are all "traditional core library functions", in my opinion. Much smaller libraries in the
Alamo Area Library System offer the same range of services. Some offer more than we do. We do not have the
resources to be able to offer enhanced services without sacrifidng some of our existing services.
3. I cant think of any joint ventures with other local libraries that would produce cost reductions. Schreiner
University's President has publicly stated that their mission and our mission are very different and gave no
encouragement to any joint operations. I imagine KISD would feel the same, plus there are enormous
obstacles in pursuing mixed governances.
4, I think Commissioner Nicholson meant users who are not Kerr County residents. We already charge $25 a
year per person for nort-residents who wish to check out materials. If he means charging them for coming into the
library, that would be very difficult to enforce and would create substantial new work that wouki detract from our
at>ifity to provide goad service.
5, We have produced a report showing active and expired patron counts. There would be substantial cost, labor
and customer anxiety involved in re-registering everyone. We are able to tally the number of cards issued during
each fiscal year. I believe that is a good enough performance measure, Aside from that, our gate count is a
better indicator of library usage than how many people are activety using their library cards.
6. Redudng the budget to the $620,000 level would require large reductions in staff and service availability.
If this is the funding level the County is proposing, the Library Advisory Board should prepare its budget
recommendation, inducting service reductions, based on that scenario.
4/18/06
4113!06 10:14 AM
Patrons by Patron Category			

Acti	
ve Patrons	
Expired Patrons	Total
Category		
202	255

StaffJVolunieers	53
7,840	14,759	22,599
8
126
Adult Kerrville	2 790	5,336
2 667	,
4 464
JuvenAe KerrvilVe	1,797		648
6
Retired Kerrville	2 607	4,041	,
1 953
Adult Kerr County	657	1,296	504
Juvenile Kerf County	202	302	
835
Retired Kerr County	210	625	35
Adult Nonresident	~	29	

Juvenile Nonresident	
0	0	
438
Retired Nonresident (not in use/	87	351	
20
ColVege Nonresident	12	8	0
8usinessesrOrganizations	0	0	
0
Camps (not in use)	0	0	0
Day Cares snot in use)
not in use}
ment Homes (
i	0	0
4	
4
re
Nursing/Ret	0		78
Schools
TexShare Card Visitors	7g

16,339	0
29,620	
45,959
Total	
f 12:	
00:01 AM on Aprif 13,	
2006
Expired patrons include ati whose cards are e	xpired as o		
	are counted with BusinesseslOrganizations
Camps, Day Cares, and Nursing Homes now
nted with Ad	ult Nonresident		
Retired Nonresident now are cou			
4/13/06