Library plan outlined

Next comes the hard part.

The Flathead County library board last week approved a strategic plan that outlines a much larger library in Bigfork. Finding the money for it will be the next step.

Bigfork’s library in dowtown is about 1,400 square feet, but based on recommendations from the county’s consultants the library should be 5,000 square feet.

A new facilities master plan for the Flathead County Library System calls for the construction of new libraries in Kalispell, Columbia Falls and Bigfork, an investment that would cost roughly $22.6 million for all three libraries.

The library’s foundation is committing to pay for about $7.5 million.

“It’s really exciting, but it’s going to be a tough row to hoe,” ImagineIF Libraries director Kim Crowley said.

Crowley said the impact to taxpayers would be small. “We pay for little for libraries now, it would be a small fee on the tax bill,” Crowley, a Bigfork resident, said.

With a footprint of 5,000 square feet, Bigfork’s next library will have to be built somewhere other than where it’s located now. The cramped space in downtown Bigfork could not be renovated to fit the community’s projected needs, Crowley said. The library board will be looking at land acquisition around Bigfork that will provide convenient access to schools and the community. Crowley said the library board will be doing site evaluations on possible land acquisition, for possible construction in 2020.

The library foundation, a separate arm of the county library, will help with land purchase. Once that is secured the county could try to pass a bond to finance construction of the library.

The library consultants based their recommendation for new libraries on a square-footage standard of 0.7 square feet of public library space per capita. The Kalispell library’s service area currently offers .45 square feet per capita, well below the benchmark.

“In 20 years if we do nothing, it would drop to .36 square feet per capita,” Crowley said.

Bigfork’s square footage per capita is .5 square feet of space. “There’s not a lot we can do in that space,” she said.

The county’s capital improvement plan had earmarked $16 million for a new Kalispell library in the 2017 fiscal year, along with $4.4 million for a new Columbia Falls library and $2.2 million for a new Bigfork library. Those allocations now have been rolled over to 2020, county Finance Director Sandy Carlson said.

They were bumped to the next five-year capital improvement plan because the commissioners weren’t sure the funding would be available for the plan that extends through 2019, Carlson said.

If funding for library construction were arranged, perhaps through a public-private partnership, the commissioners could reconsider the capital improvement plan.

The library’s facilities report recommends a funding scenario of one-third private money and two-thirds public funding.

Bigfork library’s visitation numbers have dropped in the last year, although the library over the last few years has been one of the fastest-growing in the county, Crowley said. That use has dropped about five percent from last year. “We had a big spike, now it’s starting level off,” she said.

 In order to grow that usage, Crowley plans to boost community outreach in the next year with programs that target adults. Her goal is a six percent increase in materials checkout next year.

Six months ago the county library system rebranded itself as ImagineIF Libraries. “The response has been very positive,” Crowley said.