Ford’s Budget Cuts to affect Wawa Public Library

The Ontario Library Service (OLS) delivers services on behalf of the Ontario Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport. In Ontario’s budget for 2019-20, which was tabled on April 11th, that ministry will have its funding cut by $58.6 million — from $1.55 billion to $1.49 billion.”

The Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport has made part of that cut by reducing the budgets for the Southern Ontario Library Service and the Ontario Library Service-North by half.

OLS – North supports 121 public libraries representing cities, towns, townships, local service boards, First Nation communities and fly-in communities (786,443 residents 2001 Census) in Northern Ontario.

As a result of these budget cuts, OLS – North is no longer able to provide postage reimbursement to participating libraries. OLS – North paid the costs of postage for interlibrary loans in Northern Ontario.

On April 20th, SOLS announced that regular interlibrary is suspended province-wide until further notice and that all Ontario libraries return borrowed interlibrary loan materials. From the SOLS website “It is with great sadness that I have to inform public libraries in southern Ontario that the SOLS interlibrary loan delivery service will permanently cease to operate, effective April 26^th, 2019. I know this is very sad and disappointing news but given the enormity of the cut to our operating budget, there is no alternative. Even under our previous budget allocation, it was becoming difficult to sustain the service because of ever-increasing operating costs.”

The full impacts of the budget cuts is not known yet.

Wawa-news approached the Wawa Public Library aking how these cuts will affect the 2019/20 budget for the Wawa Public Library. The question was also asked that “Is this why the hours are being changed for the library?” At the last Library Board Meeting, board members approved a reduction in hours.

CEO Colleen Abbott responded to the email stating “The future change in our library hours is a function of the Wawa Public Library Board, not the CEO.  How the budget cuts affect us is yet to be determined.I have directed your inquiries to the Board.”

Statistics from the Ontario Public Library Statistics Program for the Wawa Public Library. The Wawa Public Library also provides service to Hawk Junction residents and are included under members. Numbers are only available up to 2017.

	2017	2016	2015
Members	1,372	1,373	1,291
Hours	33	33	33
Provincial Library Operating Grant (PLOG)	8,870.00	8,870.00	9,265.00
Pay Equity Grant	775.00	775.00	775.00
Provincial Operating Funding	9,645.00	9,645.00	9,645.00
Local Operating Funding	169,380.00	189,402.00	176,175.00
Contract Revenue	547.00	547.00	547.00
Project Grant	17,651.00	19,726.00	29,700.00
Self Generated Revenue	5,629.00	3,000.00	1,010.00
Donations	3,582.00	3,032.00	975.00
Total Operating Revenues	206,434.00	225,352.00	218,052.00
Items Borrowed via Inter-Library Loan	244	239	113
Items Loaned via Inter-Library Loan	188	170	146