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Reshuffling library reserve will cost taxpayers in the end

$150,000 in initial funding also bookmarked for new branch in northwest Barrie, which deputy mayor says shows council isn't 'anti-library'
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This file photo shows an inside look at the Barrie Public Library's downtown branch.

City council’s re-arrangement of Barrie Public Library reserves will cost property taxpayers $98,000 this year.

While approving the remainder of the 2025 operating budget on Jan. 29, council also shuffled the library reserves.

“At the end of the conversation, it was more a renaming than anything else,” said Mayor Alex Nuttall.

Council approved a financial stabilization reserve and kept intact the future capital expenditure reserve, which is not to be renamed or used as a general reserve.

The Barrie Public Library board has also been asked to transfer up to 8.3 per cent — equal to one month of operating expenses — of funding in the future capital expenditure reserve to the financial stabilization reserve.

An additional one per cent or $98,000 in the current library budget request, from council, will be allocated to the library’s future capital expenditure reserve — and the 2025 tax levy will be increased by $98,000.

The 2025 property tax rate was thus increased to 4.31 per cent from 4.28 per cent. On a typical Barrie home, assessed at $369,000 and paying $4,994 in taxes last year, the tax increase equals $215.31 more, bringing its taxes to $5,209 this year. 

“(I) am not concerned, as the change aligns to the intent to use funds for capital versus general,” Coun. Ann-Marie Kungl said of the reserves shuffle. “Nothing else was really changed related to the reserves and the overall new investment approach.”

The motion council passed also instructed finance department staff to develop a list of reporting requirements, to be followed by the Barrie Public Library board, when presenting its annual budget request to council, and report back to finance and responsible governance, with this list.

Council also approved a motion Jan. 29 that a capital project entitled Barrie North West Boutique Library be established, with initial funding of $150,000.

This is for an initial design and required preliminary work, includes potential locations, and a report back to city councillors. Layout, community consultations and demographic analysis will also be done to address the needs of the 26,000 residents in the area, including 5,000 youth.

“Now they have some seed money to start investigations and planning and the feasibility of it, and where it would go,” said Deputy Mayor Robert Thomson. “I think there’s been times where people think that some of the conversation around the (council) table has been anti-library. It’s never been that.

“We’ve actually been very supportive of the library and I think we understand the importance of the library in the community, as they have become hubs,” he added. 

The northwest branch would be based on the Holly Community Library, which opened in August 2022 at 555 Essa Rd., and is 4,500 square feet in size. Its capital cost to open, including all books and shelves, was $1.1 million. 

A northwest library branch was first discussed as part of the internal audit status update for the third and fourth quarters of 2024.

One matter was the value-for-money audit of the Barrie Public Library, which received $9.8 million in city money last year.

The audit concluded the Barrie Public Library is generally operating in an economical, efficient and effective manner — although the review identified areas of improvement to further increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the library’s processes and procedures.

The Barrie Public Library has branches in the city’s downtown, and in the Painswick and Holly areas of the city. It employs 40 full-time staff and 57 part-timers, according to the audit.

The downtown branch was built in 1996 and is 56,200 sq. ft., while the Painswick branch is 15,000 sq. ft. and was built in 2011. The library board itself has spoken in the past about the need for more branches in Barrie — in community centres planned in the Hewitt's and Salem areas in the former Innisfil land, at 15,000 sq. ft. in size.



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