Richmond Hill library to stay open Sundays with funds from new facility: library board

'But our good news about Sunday is caused by the bad news of Oak Ridges not being available'

Yorkregion.com
May 9, 2019
Sheila Wang

Richmond Hill Public Library board delivered a bittersweet message May 7: Sunday services will remain this summer, but the new Oak Ridges Library won’t open any time soon.

Library board Chair David Bishop told The Liberal during a phone interview that staff is recommending the library board keep Sunday service open this summer by using funds previously allocated for the new Oak Ridges Library.

The library board is going to remove additional staffing for the new library in order to free up funding to support Sunday service at the central branch, Bishop said.

“We believed originally the budget was the best we could do with the information we had. Now, we know it’ll be very late in the year that the new library will be put into operation.”

The library board said earlier the central branch will close from June 9 to Sept. 1 this year in order to adjust to a budget constraint, yorkregion.com reported.

Bishop just learned from staff that it was not likely for the $11,863,000 Oak Ridges Library to be complete before November due to a plethora of delays due to contractual issues. Therefore, additional staffing support for the new facility won't be needed till much later this year.

The library staff made the recommendation to transfer funds from the new library to maintain Sunday service at the central branch after a turn of events on May 5 when Deputy Mayor Carmine Perrelli surprised a group of CUPE members at a leafleting event at the central branch.

“The library will not close on Sundays. I give you my word,” Perrelli told Katherine Grzejszczak, president of CUPE 905, who was there informing residents of the upcoming Sunday closure.

He did not elaborate on how he intended to keep it open.

On the following day, The Liberal received a copy of statement by Ward 1 Coun. Greg Beros through Mike Makrigiorgos, chief of staff for Perrelli, Beros and Deputy Mayor Joe DiPaola.

The councillor cited previous budget increase rates from 2014 to 2019, noting there is “ample budget” to maintain services within the current funding envelope.

“The City of Richmond Hill has provided a budget increase to Richmond Hill Libraries of 32.28% over the last 6 years,” he wrote.

By the numbers

Neither the accumulative increase rate nor the yearly budget increase percentage Beros referenced was accurate, according to library board spokesperson Brock Smith and Amin Mawani, an associate professor of accounting at York University's Schulich School of Business.

In a line-by-line review, The Liberal finds the budget increase percentages over the past six years provided by Beros inconsistent with the numbers provided by the library.

For example, Beros stated the library board received a 10.13 per cent budget increase in 2018 to account for increased costs of operating the new branch in Oak Ridges while in fact the library received a 8.6 per cent increase.

Meanwhile, simply adding all the year-over-year budget increase percentages together is not the right way to calculate the increase rate, Mawani said, noting the accumulative growth rate can sometimes be used when “someone wants to obscure something.”

He said the best way to illustrate the budget increase rate over the years is the annual increase rate, which is an average of 5 per cent.

In the statement, Beros also compared the library budget increase with the rate of inflation, pointing out the budget increase the library received has been much higher than the inflation rate.

“No, it’s growth plus inflation,” said library board chair David Bishop. “If the number of residents increased and the funding for service doesn’t, what does that mean? It means if you just pay for the average level of service for every resident, it’s obviously gonna be less service than before.”

The library board is scheduled to officially vote on the staff recommendation at the next meeting on May 16.

Bishop said he’s glad to see the library open on Sundays but it isn’t time for a celebration.

“Keeping the existing service open is good news, but our good news about Sunday is caused by the bad news of Oak Ridges not being available.”