COLUMBIA, Pa. — The Columbia Public Library is coming up as much as $100,000 short each year and is dipping into its endowment to stay open, its board president told Borough Council on Thursday.
“A year or two from now… we will be looking at closing our doors,” library president Mark Stewart said, if the gap isn’t closed. “I think that’ll be a big loss to the community.”
Stewart spoke at council’s Nov. 5 budget workshop, two days after Lancaster County voters turned down a countywide library tax. He said that tax would have covered the library’s gap.
The numbers
- Operating budget: just under $300,000 for 2027. More than half goes to staff pay. The library offers no health insurance.
- Government aid: state, county and municipal aid together cover $140,000. The borough gave $20,000 this year.
- Other income: about $25,000 more from book sales, room rentals, printing and copying services, and fees.
- The gap: close to $100,000 on paper. Stewart said realistically the library needs to cover $50,000 or more.
The library fills that gap with corporate donations through the state’s EITC tax credit program, gifts from estates and family foundations, and by drawing down its endowment. Stewart called using the endowment “a horrible idea” that isn’t sustainable.
Some costs are out of the library’s hands, he said. New state rules now require a full audit and a yearly pressure test on the building’s small elevator, which together cost more than $17,000.
Busy and stretched
Stewart said the library is the home library for about 4,500 cardholders and lent out 8,000 items in a single month for the first time this summer. It runs free preschool classes and summer programs, and doubles as what he called the borough’s “de facto community center, cooling station, bookstore… employment assistant hub and internet cafe.”
It is also one of the few places where people experiencing homelessness can spend the day, he said. Staff, who have no janitor, sometimes find needles in the restroom children also use, and they defuse tense situations without calling police in all but a handful of cases a year.
Staff earn about $15 an hour, Stewart said. A council member asked how a proposed state minimum wage increase to $15 would affect the library. Stewart said that is “pretty much what we’re paying right now.”
Besides Columbia, only West Hempfield Township contributes to the library, Stewart said. He said the library is trying to arrange support from Wrightsville, since many patrons come from York County.
Council did not decide on library funding Thursday. Budget talks continue at the Nov. 10 meeting.