Library Wants City to Cosign for $500,000 Loan

The cash-strapped Des Plaines Public Library is expecting a substantial bridge loan with the city to come to its rescue while other funding options are considered to avoid closing to the community.

If it doesn't receive tax receipts owed by Cook County in early December, the library will run out of money. So the Oct. 19 meeting was filled with drama as the board of trustees voted 5-3 to lock the doors if tax revenues were not forthcoming or the city did not cosign for a $500,000 loan.

"The library is part of the social fabric of the community, and this would be the worse-case scenario," said trustee Jennifer Tsalapatanis. "I just would have liked to have seen it go before the [city] council for them to make a choice before we put this out there to our residents."

Patch has a story on the recent council meeting concerning the library's budget crisis.

Council members are scheduled to vote on the loan Nov. 1. The library board needs the city as a cosigner because it is not a taxing body.

Library officials were asked to present their budget to the council Sept. 30, but no representatives attended the meeting. Nor was it clear at the time why they were absent.

Tsalapatanis considered it a missed opportunity.

"By going by the board and simply communicating with them, and just being a mere presence that we probably could've had a better feel, a better direction [and] field any questions that they might have had and alleviate some concerns," she said.

Library board president George Magerl explained the snafu, saying he and director Holly Sorensen were attending the Illinois Library Association (ILA) conference. Though copies of the budget were delivered to council members, no one was at the Sept. 30 meeting to answer their questions, he said.

"I was already committed to be at the ILA convention that day. I was out of town until the 28th," Magerl said. "When I got back and informed Holly of that we did not have time to change it."

He defended the decision by saying: "It's the one time of year I have a chance to interact with trustees from other libraries, get plans and information from them on alternate financing and money sources and so forth."

At their meeting, the board trustees also voted 7-1 to review data regarding another scenario in which the library would operate with a bare-bones staff for a month or two. It would require a cut in hours as part of an effort to reduce operating expenses by $300,000 a month.

Tsalapatanis, a finance committee member, made the motion, which will be discussed during a special meeting on Oct. 26.

However, the library board's and council's best efforts still face the source of the cash-flow problem: Cook County's tax collection system. The county has been chronically late in issuing property tax bills, and slow to deliver funds to libraries, schools and other municipal agencies.

Cook County is the exception to its counterparts across Illinois that typically provide shares of tax revenues to their local libraries in mid-March and mid-September. The fall tax bills are scheduled to go out Nov. 22 in Cook County.

It generally takes the county longer than the estimated two weeks that others need to distribute the funds to libraries and other agencies.

Sorensen, the library director, notes Des Plaines' hands are tied given the situation.

"The thing I want them [residents] to understand most is that it's a cash-flow issue," she said. "It's the late payment of the second installment of property tax that has put us in this position, and we are going to do everything we can to stay open.”