Funding of the Denton Public Library

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FUNDING OF THE DENTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
A Study of the League of Women Voters of Denton

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Funding of the Denton Public Library

The Denton Public Library (DPL) consists of three libraries within the city limits of Denton, Texas: the Emily Fowler Central Library, the South Branch, and the North Branch.

The Emily Fowler Central Library was founded in 1937 and moved into its current location in the Denton Civic Center Park in 1949. That building was designed by the architect O’Neill Ford. The building was temporarily closed May 2003 for renovation and reopened in June 2005.

The South Branch was constructed as the result of a capital improvements bond election in 1988. Funds available from the bond were not enough to build the library as originally intended, so the library opened in 1995 with 10,000 sq. ft. instead of the 15,000 sq. ft. called for in the original plans. This library is located on Teasley Lane in the southern limits of Denton.

The North Branch, the most recent addition to the Denton Public Library buildings, was an imaginative remodeling and renovation of a former grocery supermarket at the corner of Locust Street and Windsor Drive, near Strickland Middle School. The opening took place in July 2003.

Since its inception, funding of the DPL has been primarily from the City of Denton, through taxes paid by property owners. The DPL is one of 17 public libraries in Denton County, and although DPL is located in the county seat, it is not the “county” library. Denton County has provided some funding, less than 8 % of the DPL’s budget for the last five years. The DPL has also been able to expand some services thanks to dollars awarded from various grants, primarily state and federal.

The tables in this Background Information were originally prepared by Eva Poole, Director of Libraries for the Denton Public Library, and used as part of her presentation at the November 2005 meeting of the League of Women Voters of Denton. We have taken the liberty of recasting some of the information into other tables.

First, we consider the percentage of the City of Denton budget that goes to fund the operating expenses of the Denton Public Library. Looking at the last five years for which data are available (see Table 1), the portion of the city’s budget that supports the library has increased from 4% to 6%.

In 2001 Denton County provided an allocation of $134,971, representing 7% of the Denton Public Library’s budget. By fiscal year 2005 that support had dropped to 3% of the library’s budget with $126,501.

Table 1. Denton Public Library Support from the City and the County

In the last 10 years financial support for county libraries from the Denton County Commissioners Court has been declining. Table 2 shows the per capita allocation from Denton County to the libraries within the county. The allocations went from a high of $1.25 per capita in 1991-1992, dropped to $1.20 per capita for five years in the late 1990’s, returned for five more years to $1.25 in the early 2000s, then dropped to 80.5 cents in 2005-2006.

Table 2. Per Capita Allocations to County Libraries
from the Denton County Budget

In final discussions for the 2005-2006 budget the Denton County Commissioners Court did agree to provide some funding to county libraries, but with a proviso. That proviso was that each library place a filter on each computer for library use that had Internet access. While nearly all of the libraries agreed to that condition in order to obtain county funds, and coupled with the fact that county funding had reached an all-time low of $.80 per capita, the Denton Public Library did not. Thus, for the first time in recent memory the DPL had no funding from the county during 2005-2006.

Denton Public Library compared to other libraries in Denton County

Table 3. Comparison of County Libraries : Number of Items,
Items per capita, Material Expenditures per capita, Total Operating Expenditures per capita, and Hours per Week of Service in FY 2004

Table 3 shows that the DPL offers more hours of service per week (70) than seven other libraries in the county and ranks third among that group in number of items in the collection. DPL operating expenses per capita for medium and large libraries in Denton County is neither the most expensive nor the least expensive. According to Eva Poole, Director of Libraries, in a 2004 national sample of 100 libraries with populations from 81,000 to 111,500 the total mean operating expenditures per capita were $33.14, while the median was $28.55.

Description of Denton Public Library users

DPL patrons come from many of the surrounding communities, particularly Corinth, Sanger, Argyle, Aubrey, and Krum. As of 10/31/05 the communities with residents having cards in the DPL are shown in Table 4.

Table 4. Communities with Card Holders in the
Denton Public Library as of 10/31/05

Information provided by the Director of Libraries of the Denton Public Library at the November 17, 2005 meeting of the League of Women Voters showed that there were 70,221 card holders as of 10/31/05. Of that total, 49,763 were City of Denton card holders. Out-of-city card holders numbered 18,216 and 2,242 were out-of-county card holders.

There is a growing increase in the number of materials borrowed by non-resident Denton Public Library Card Holders, especially when looking at the trend that has developed since 2002.

Table 5. Materials Borrowed by Non-Resident
Denton Public Library Card Holders

$50 per household fee

Calculations made in October 2005, assuming 2.5 persons per household, showed that the net cost per household of providing services in the Denton Public Library was $132.16. For FY 2005-2006 Denton County was contributing nothing toward the operating costs of the DPL.

The Denton City Council, recognizing the need to find monies to replace the funds usually provided by Denton County Commissioners Court, agreed in 2005 to initiate a user fee of $50 per household per year for non-residents effective October 1, 2005. If a non-resident chooses not to purchase a library card from the DPL, he or she may still use services and resources in the library free of charge. This includes reference materials, Internet access, online resources, newspapers, magazines, books, and programs for all ages. The fee applies only for checking out library materials.

The number of cards issued to non-residents and the amount of dollars collected has varied, with most cards being issued the month before the fees went into effect (Table 6).

Table 6. Non Resident Fees
September 2005 – January 2006