The City of St. Albert’s administration posted a proposed 2023 budget Monday that includes an immediate brutal $500,000 funding cut to the St. Albert Public Library.
The budget proposal was added to the city’s website immediately after Chief Administrative Officer Bill Fletcher presented the document to City Council Monday.
That cut alone would result in layoffs of three to five staff members and immediate service cuts at St. Albert’s best used and most popular public facility. Programs such as seniors’ outreach, kids’ story times, Starfest, and various free digital library services would have to go.
But that’s just the first third of the city administration’s three-year plan to slash $1.5 million from the library’s annual budget of only $4.6 million – that is, 33 per cent of the library’s current already shrunken operating budget.
If those cuts are made, as many as 25 full-time-equivalent positions will disappear – and that inevitably means a larger number of actual staff members will lose their jobs. Many of them are young people. Most are city residents. Even more programs will have to be chopped.
In the words of the library board last summer, “cuts of this magnitude will imperil everything the library does.”
“We’re the one city service that’s being faced with such a big cut to its funding,” Library Director Peter Bailey told the local newspaper at the time. “This will have a devastating effect.”
The original proposal for the cuts came as a surprise to the library board when the administration rolled them out at the Aug. 16 meeting of City Council’s committee of the whole.
Until Friday when they saw a summary of the administration’s formal 2023 budget proposal in City Council’s agenda package, the board and staff expected to have an opportunity to make a presentation to council first to plead for a not-so-devastating zero-per-cent increase.
That seems like pretty shabby treatment of our community’s most valuable cultural and educational institution right there.
But then, full disclosure, I’m biased – I’m a former member and chair of the St. Albert Public Library Board. I’m fully aware of the funding struggles the library has faced for years, its chronic lack of space for storage and programs, and the neglectful attitude of many St. Albert councillors and outright hostility of others.
Councillor Sheena Hughes, for example, has made no secret of her wish to see the library close its storefront Jensen Lakes branch, which serves the city’s rapidly growing northern suburbs.
The way the budget proposal was introduced on Monday smacks of an effort to hand council a fait accompli that will make it politically difficult to let the library continue to operate without cutting staff and programs because it appears to tie maintaining the library’s modest budget to higher taxes. Some councillor would have to be brave enough to vote to restore the library budget to keep the cuts from happening.
That’s why it’s important to dig a little deeper into the administration’s proposed budget.
You need to go all the way down to Page 124 of the proposed budget to find an “operating business case” for two new permanent jobs for senior assistants to CAO Fletcher, the former military officer with no experience as a city manager who was hired to run the administration last May.
The cost of those two staff additions: $480,000 a year.
The administration pitch notes the city’s decision under the previous city manager, applauded by many St. Albertans, to downsize the city’s “leadership group” in 2019.
“The significant (33%) reduction at the Leadership Team Director level, required multiple departments to be collapsed under a single leader creating further span of control and oversight issues along with legitimate struggles with workload,” the business case complains in peerless bureaucratese.
“The addition of two positions to support the strategic and operational needs of the organization is intended to right size the organization,” it goes on. (Emphasis added.)
Now city councillors are being asked to “right size” the bureaucracy by wrong-sizing the community’s most worthwhile and popular cultural and educational asset.
There’s something wrong with this priority. Remember, even under the 2019 reorganization the city had a CAO, a deputy CAO, and 12 directors.
Perhaps in anticipation of such an objection, the business case concludes, “in review of comparable sized municipalities in Alberta, including some much smaller than St. Albert, it was determined that 4 executive level positions was the very minimum level employed with may having a larger team than what is being proposed.”
So let’s talk about comparisons.
In the most recent data from 2021, St. Albert Public Library was the busiest library of mid-sized Alberta libraries by circulation per capita. Comparable libraries in Strathcona County and the City of Lethbridge are more generously financed than St. Albert’s.
And no other city department is being asked to take similar cuts. As the Library board said in its Aug. 29 statement, “the proposed cuts are disproportionate. City administration proposes deep cuts to the Library budget immediately, while, proposing not to consider other internal assessments and cuts until 2024.”
If you raise this issue with city council, someone is bound to bring up the Operational and Fiscal Review done by the Ernst & Young consulting firm in 2021.
Just remember that the library wasn’t even part of that flawed study’s original scope, although eventually the out-of-town consultants focused on it, no doubt with a little push from somewhere. E&Y supposedly made its recommendations of big cuts based on “comparable municipalities” – but did not tell the library board just which comparable municipalities.
Finally, someone is sure to ask about restoring library fees. Just remember, it costs more to collect them than the funds they generate. They drive away the people who need the library the most. And with regional library services, St. Albertans would have to pay to use their own library while folks from Edmonton could use it for free.
I’m told at least 200 St. Albertans have written city councillors to protest the proposed cuts. Not all of them have received the courtesy of an answer.
But our councillors are going to have to hear from a lot more voters than that if we’re going to save our library.
City Council’s profiles and contact information are found here.
This smacks of something that the UCP would do, or what Ralph Klein would have done. Both had a disrespect for municipalities, and passed costs onto them, via harsh cuts. Municipal property taxes increased, as a result.
Everything you’re complaining about in regards to this library, is exactly the problem with AHS: too many unqualified managers with overpaid assistants taking resources from where they’re needed most: front-line workers and patients. Hopefully Smith is able to fix this without being sabotaged by AHS.
Makis like typing detected.
The difference between your argument and DJs is he presented evidence in support of his argument.
The bodies in the hallways are my evidence.
Okay, I walked away from this three times before responding. Trying like hell to be calm and civil, erasing and editing as I go, wow this is hard, I am SO angry and upset. This is like slandering your own troops during WW2. You seriously need to check yourself and learn some actual facts about what you are talking about.
I understand you are upset and that health care isn’t what you remember, or what you expect. I agree on both counts. That said, people aren’t dying because health care staff aren’t doing their jobs, or because health care staff are wasting resources (although it is true that the health care system is needlessly wasteful). People are dying because normal Canadians prioritize the rights of assholes to lick doorknobs and spread plague over the rights of Canadians to survive, and because Canadians would rather kill their grandparents then shut down travel and get paid to stay home for two months, and because we are okay with knowing that we MAY be causing the deaths of many strangers as long as it can’t be proven that we HAVE caused them.
Canadians have burned their own health care system down because they lacked the moral strength to say “no” to their neighbour when their neighbour was destroying their society. Tommy Douglas would move to Sweden. Sather would trade us for a bucket of pucks and boast of his win. Jesus would brush the dust off his sandals and walk to the next town.
If you want to be part of the solution, please please please PLEASE take a resume to your nearest hospital or health care center. We are understaffed EVERYWHERE! You don’t need a degree – we need housekeepers, cooks and paper pushers too. HELP US! Instead of standing on the sidelines and complaining, perhaps you ought to seize the opportunity to be part of the solution. You are needed!
My generation didn’t have to go to war. But when a once-in-a-century crisis came along, I served in the capacity I was able to. I’m not a doctor or a nurse, I’m one of those paper pushers (a very overqualified one, thank you very much) wasting all your hard-earned tax dollars while twirling my moustache and cackling with maniacal laughter with all my Liberal friends while thunder crashes in the background and in the distance, an innocent Albertan baby cries for Liberty.
I didn’t want to work in health care. I took the worst job in the hospital in my hometown (covid screener), moving provinces to do so, when I could have gotten paid to stay home. I did that well enough for long enough that they asked me to do more, then more, then more. I have nearly quit at least two dozen times. I never imagined I would ever accept this much crap in the course of a normal week’s work. I never imagined I would be this angry at Canadians. Working in health care is very unsatisfying right now, to put it nicely I’ve turned down two better job offers and one is waiting for me any time I want it plus there is a TON of opportunity right now, it’s a worker’s economy for the first time in my life and I’m making less money than I could for an employer (the taxpayer) who has frankly treated me and my coworkers like we exist only to serve them and absorb their abuse while smiling and apologizing. I am not a serf. I have worked a ton of overtime, I have lots of savings, I’m wealthier than I’ve ever been. If I leave in the foreseeable future, the health care my community receives will diminish a little bit, and will become less cost-effective. You see the doctor, doctor writes the referral, paper pusher actually makes the appointment happen. You want to pay doctors to push their own paper? Me neither. We are needed no less than you are. I am held in place by an ever-fraying rope that is my sense of social responsibility. How long can I hold on for? I don’t know, but statements such as yours make it much harder.
When people get jobs in hospitals, we sign nondisclosure agreements. Because I’m putting my name on this, I’ve had to re-re-re-re-re edit this. Things are bad. Please help us. Or at the very least, stop hiding in tall grass and shanking us in the ankles while we try to save you from yourselves.
Neil….still banging the pot…still supporting my local EMS guy’s/girls who are close by, and 100% concur with your take….
It was the ” it just affects old people ” that got me,(all of a sudden I’m expendable, so you can go party??)….and that was from the initial spring break and then the “it’s all about me ” really seemed to set in….Every time I hear another news item about the lack of hospital staff (in all departments) I start to twitch,these people complain about shortages, and yet don’t realize how much they are responsible for this….why would I get a job that is constantly being highlighted in the news as people being overworked, underpaid, verbally abused,harrassed ,and then having to provide care for these same people who still deny that they have covid. You and your coworkers have my complete admiration. I remember how proud my grandparents were when my cousin became the first RN in the family and how little respect the job gets now . And unfortunately, it’s going to get worse, because I can’t see any way that any restrictions will be brought back, no matter how many cases, and the numbwits who think that privatizing is the solution are going to be in for a rude awakening….the problem with recreating serfdom, is the serfs have a tendency to revolt…and while the knights are fighting each other over who is the rightful lord….
I digress, THANK YOU for all you try to do, not all of us are blind and thoughtless …
Listen friend, I work in health care. The system is inefficient but it has been for decades, that’s not why it’s failing. The reason its failing is because of proudly defiant covidiots who refuse to wear a mask or receive free medicine that could save their life and someone else’s. I miss when shallow, vapid people made fashion statements by wasting money on clothes that made them look weird. Now they make fashion statements by spreading diseases or trying to overthrow democracy.
Fed up with AHS: That’s a contradiction, if there ever was one. Danielle Smith just bloated her cabinet, and it’s the largest cabinet Alberta has ever had. Something like 27 ministers and 11 associate ministers. That won’t be cheap. AHS is Danielle Smith’s scapegoat, so she can try and privatize healthcare in Alberta.
The Town of Eckville has increased its library budget year over year including for 2022. Even on a very limited tax base they value their public library, books, and reading. Oh, and a Town with a very limited population has also built a small water park for the kids in summer. Main street has solar/battery powered street lights. Enough of sneering at rural people.
What a pathetic display from your city administration.
This is the most St Albert thing I have ever heard of. Only the poors use the library, how dare they get something for free that I … also … could get for free
Good sleuthing. I will be even more involved in advocacy. My letter is already sent.
Unfortunately because of the funding model for most municipalities, at least in Ontario, the easiest cuts can be directed at parks and libraries. No powerful police, fire or city administrators’ salaries to meddle with. Only library staff.
Years ago when our mayor tried the same stunt the public outcry was fast and furious. Many of us showed up at city council and an articulate member of the library board smooth talked the council into backing down. Angry faces in the crowd helped too. Numbers at council meetings count. Fortunately in St. Albert you have the investigative skills of the blogger, honing down to page 124 to find the $480k gem for two new administrative kingpins. I.F. Stone would be proud.
No increase in your taxes folks, the library will pay for two new “right sized” office chairs at city hall. Same stuff all over.
I believe libraries are one of our most important public institutions. It puts everyone on an equal playing field. Those that cannot afford the luxury of a laptop or access to reading materials have the world in their palms. The children’s programming are also great.
I for one take my children to the public libraries in Calgary on a regular basis. The library is always abuzz of activity and the multicultural aspect is so evident. And yet we have those in St. Albert who had access to these cherished resources themselves now want to slash for future generations. Where are your priorities St. Albert?
Ah, St Albert. The offshore account of Edmonton. Highest per capita income in AB? Couldn’t they just up the mil rate by 0.005% to cover this cut? Or co-locate mini libraries with other service centres?
This article and the comments below it fail to recognize that the library isn’t “free”. It’s not hugely expensive ($150 per St. Albert household per year if my math is correct) but we all pay for it, and we might want to direct that funding to something else – park maintenance, playground equipment, or (god forbid) back into our own pockets.
Every poll I’ve seen shows that St. Albert’s citizens are not in favor of investing in libraries, and it’s rational for that to be represented in how much funding goes to the library.
I live in St. Albert and am fine with the city occasionally deciding not to write every cheque for every cause. It doesn’t make me automatically short-sighted or greedy to ask that my money be spent in areas I’d like.
Mr. Friesenhan: I’m certainly not arguing public libraries are free. As you say, there are real costs. I am arguing they’re worth the expense. I am aware of no recent public opinion polls that have specifically asked St. Albertans about their support for library services, although I am prepared to stand corrected. There was a deceptive referendum-style vote in St. Albert on preferences for recreational spending a few years ago, but it was promoted by members of St. Albert City Council who wanted to sink a plan to build a new library facility and it was, in my opinion, engineered to produce a result that justified pulling the plug on the project. One indicator of the level of support for the institution, though, is the number of library memberships and the heavy use of library programs. As for alternative uses for municipal taxes, my not very scientific sense is that the most vociferous opponents of library spending in St. Albert are also strongly opposed opposed to parks and playgrounds, art galleries, museums, public art, rainbow crosswalks, public transit and so on. Their priorities seem to be roads. As for money in our own pockets, I certainly approve of council trying to keep tax increases to a reasonable level – I too am a St. Albert taxpayer – and I personally am not convinced we need three more sheets of ice. That said, to recall Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s famous aphorism, “taxes are what we pay for civilized society.” DJC
Joe Friesenham ,policy for the UCP party as of 2020…..??? “Money in my pockets ” ???
Taxpayers money?..
Another delve into limiting education, those darned kids are so inquisitive, can’t have that now, next thing you know they’ll be thinking for themselves, when “we know ” all that they need to know
Just another coincidence of political parties getting into municipal affairs and shaping standards for the future???
You’ve made some fair points.
I’d like to dig into one a bit deeper. First, a mea culpa: my statement “Every poll I’ve seen shows that St. Albert’s citizens are not in favor of investing in libraries” suggests I have substantive knowledge (or, frankly, any knowledge) on polling data regarding the library issue in St. Albert. The only source of information on this topic that I can actually recall was the results of the St. Albert referendum you mention in your comments. I do remember that voters were not in favour of the new facility by a significant margin.
Again going from memory, I seem to recall the question put to voters on the library being pretty straightforward. I’d love to hear your perspective on why you believe it was deceptive.
Mr. Friesenhan: The non-binding plebiscite in 2017 was put in place by opponents of the project on council AFTER council had approved creation of a branch library. I believe the the referendum was intended to create the impression of a false choice – which of these services would you prefer, you may only say yes to one … I believe the alternative choices were chosen because they had well-organized groups of supporters affiliated with teams and clubs in the knowledge they would likely pull support from the library. Voting strategically, even individuals who understood the question tended to vote yes only to one to maximize the number of votes going to their choice. The objective of this supposed exercise in democracy was to kill a project that had already been approved but was despised by a small but vocal group in our community who had been waging a propaganda war against the library for weeks. (See the Facebook group to organize a petition against the new library. Many lies were told by this group about the size and cost of the project.) Now, this said, the library board’s campaign to counter this was naive and foolish. The board was determined not to say anything “negative” and just let the lies of this very active and vocal group of opponents go unchallenged. It was a textbook example of how to lose a political fight. And, as I predicted at the time, they lost it decisively. Local media reported it exactly as you would expect, as if the referendum were a zero-sum exercise: “Unofficial results from the city showed an overwhelming amount of people who cast ballots did so against the branch library.” I said at the time that this would destroy the chances of the library of getting the expansion it needed for a generation. I was surprised when the library managed to get the much smaller Jensen Lakes branch approved, and I have been completely unsurprised by the continued campaign by the same person on council to get that branch closed. However, I never expected to see a sneak campaign by the city administration to slash 35% from the library’s budget – a cut no business could survive. No doubt I will remember more things about that so-called referendum as I think about it. As for actual meaningful public opinion polling, I’m looking to see if there has been any, and I’ll report back if there was. But I frankly doubt it. Why would the city administration, for example, pay for polling that showed support for something they are determined not to do? DJC
Now that I have dredged up a copy of the question to refresh my memory, I realize was mistaken above to say this was simply a vote for a preferred project. (I have made some minor edits to make that passage accurate.) Voters were in fact asked to vote yes or no to three specific projects. The community Branch Library had been unanimously approved by Council in 2015. The question asked in 2017 as part of the successful campaign to derail the library was complicated and required voters to read an introduction, which I am prepared to bet most of them didn’t. (Click here to see how the ballot was worded.) The question was about three specific projects; many voters thought they were saying yes or no forever to projects of the type mentioned (hence the bitter nonsense about how the Jensen Lakes library went against the vote – it didn’t, even if the vote had been binding). The Elections Act is silent on non-binding referenda, the city administration sided with the No side, and council members who had voted to approve the project acted like cowards, so there were no restraints on spending or sign numbers or even basic honesty for the No side. City bureaucrats allowed no YES signage or materials inside the library. So it was BS from start to finish in my opinion.
As for other surveys, I am informed the city did include the library in last year’s satisfaction survey, but, whatever they were, the results are meaningless in terms of the issue we are talking about now. Telling us that most library patrons are satisfied is no guide to how many people in the city support library services.
DJC
Thanks very much for the detailed response. I recall the hullabaloo surrounding this at the time of the municipal election and this puts a lot of it in context.
It’s a shame that the library became a political football the way that it did. I know it sounds odd given that I led this back-and-forth by being somewhat “in favour” of cutting the library budget. My original point was a pedantic, reflexive defense of the idea that being cost-conscious isn’t solely the domain of bad people. What can I say, I’m not used to participating in the comments section.
By getting off-track right at the start I missed the point that should upset every St. Albert conservative (or progressive for that matter) – we’re cutting libraries to fund administrative assistants to bureaucrats, to the tune of $240,000 per position? I know these two folks won’t take home all of that money, but how do I get a job as an administrative assistant making the kind of coin we’re talking about here?
I have about six follow-up comments and additional questions for you but I’ve taken enough of your time. I appreciate the extra research and time spent explaining municipal politics to a neophyte.
Joe: I totally agree. I think this is one of those rare occasions where we’ve ended up at pretty much the same place. I certainly agree with you that being cost-conscious is a virtue, especially in civic government. Although I would say that some of our most performatively cost-conscious representatives budget an awful lot of money for things in which I have trouble seeing the value. The $240,000-per-person calculation is a very interesting question. First of all, I wonder and will endeavour to find out, what is the base salary for these two positions? I am told benefits at the city of St. Albert are usually calculated at 22% of compensation. So does that mean the base salary for these two is circa $187,000? Why does the city manager (pardon me, Chief Administrative Officer) of a community of only 70,000 require two assistants paid in this range? What is it the CAO himself does with his time? Give orders, I suppose. There is an email address in the “About the Author” section of the blog. Why don’t you email me your six questions and I will add them to the list of things I am trying to find out. DJC
Like so many governments, it seems like this one is forgetting that its primary job is to serve the public and not itself. Spending more on administration, while reducing spending on services to the public is a mistake.
Of course, administration can readily lobby for whatever it wants and might make its life easier or give them more power. It is a bit harder for the public to get the attention of its municipal leaders, but ultimately it is the public that votes and elected representatives would be wise not to forget that.
From working for the Royal Bank for 32 years and managing 7 of their branches it makes my blood boil knowing what these damn reformers, pretending they are conservatives have done to us. I am certain we have lost around $800 billion in oil and tax revenues they have helped their rich friends screw us out of and every lawyer, accountant, oilman, banker and former MLA I have talked to has agreed. Like Alaska and Norway we should be rolling in money also , and these money problems should never be an issue. Who is to blame? Stupid Albertans who have to be some of the dumbest people on the planet as the American oilmen I knew suggested. Mostly seniors hurling sarcastic comments at anyone not as stupid as they are, believing every lie these reformers feed them . They still think we are broke because Ottawa is stealing all our money because Klein told them so, when it’s Reformers giving it away. Brainwashed idiots friends call them , just too stupid to understand it. From having at least 100 relatives in B.C. I know they aren’t that stupid, they have no problem kicking out politicians. We just automatically vote conservative no matter who the idiots are running the show. Even the people in High River -Okotoks , Smith’s home riding , weren’t dumb enough to elect her in 2015. They knew what she stands for. It’s bad enough we have to fight this fake conservative government, we have to fight the idiots who support them a lawyer friend used to say.
Great article. I truly wish you had a bigger platform. And that our media was not mostly owned by two or three individuals who are intent upon stifling other perspectives and ideologies.
Wonder who they have in mind for those two high paying positions??? Enquiring minds want to know. Cutting the budget to the library just doesn’t make sense. Not only do libraries provide reading material and a lot of other services, but one thing I’ve noticed is children doing their home work in public libraries. Many kids don’t have quiet homes and the library is perfect for them.
This isn’t about the money, because they’re still spending a shit load, but for non public use positions. Laying off library workers and spend that kind of money on two administrative positions doesn’ t make any sense.
of course closing libraries, etc. will prevent those without computers from going to the library and writting letters to the editor, etc.
They voted for the UCP, now they can forget about their library because of it.
It appears it has finally happened: only stupid things happen in Alberta.
Now that Danielle Straitjacket has decided that Calgary MUST have its brand new NHL arena, one wonders what other brilliance will spew forth from the Premier’s Office. Considering the UCP’s dire situation in Calgary, there is maybe enough idiocy in the works to just buy Calgary their new arena. Yes. Smith decides to play Oprah and shouts out, “You get a new arena! And you get a new arena!! And you get a new arena!!!” Meanwhile, such things as public literacy are treated as highly questionable luxuries. Since the current premier seems to be inclined to make embarrassing and weird conspiratorial pronouncements, before somewhat walking them back, considering Alberta as the crazy uncle you hide in the antic may have just turned into the crazy uncle with dementia you hide in the antic.
I think that there’s a loaded gun in the attic (antic?) that our crazy uncle might pick up… She could hurt a lot of people!
I know I’m going to regret following up on this, but I can’t help it.
Please explain how it’s the UCP’s fault that we don’t have a library a) in a provincial constituency with an NDP MLA and b) St. Albert’s municipal government has been responsible for all of the decisions?
Joe: I’m not sure to whom this is directed. Not me, presumably. The issue here, as you say quite rightly, is the action of the city government, which has not yet fully played out. I would say, though, that the government (that is the ministry, the cabinet) is responsible for the delivery of government services in all electoral districts of the province regardless of which party the MLA is a member. DJC
I must have clicked the wrong button when replying. This comment is a reply to e.a.f.’s comment on October 26th, particularly the line:
“They voted for the UCP, now they can forget about their library because of it.”
I’m baffled because St. Albert didn’t vote for the UCP and even if they did the UCP can’t stop St. Albert from building as many libraries as they want.
I think I’m generally in agreement with the rest of the comment, I’m just wondering how the UCP fits in to this specific issue.
For comparison, the City of Grande Prairie — population just under 70,000 at last count — has seven direct reports to the City Manager, who reports to Council.
https://cityofgp.com/city-government/city-administration
The City’s annual Operating Budget is just under $228 million. https://openbudget-cityofgp.hub.arcgis.com/
Unfortunately I can’t get the site to tell me the Library’s budget specifically.
DJC..interactions with Joe-
CTV News Edmonton..Oct 22..UCP meeting to vote on resolutions/ Joe Friesenhan/St Albert constituency…
Just a coincidence?? Or another name being used.?
re: CTV article, yes, that is me.