Graham Jaehnig/DMG Portage Lake District Library director Katrina Linde-Moriarty addresses the Hancock School Board on Monday, providing details of the proposed contract between the Hancock School Public Library and PLDL.

HANCOCK — Portage Lake District Library Director Katrina Linde-Moriarty on Monday provided details and budget breakdowns on a contract proposal between Hancock School Board and PLDL for continued operations of Hancock School Public Library.

Linde-Moriarty said the PLDL Board is proposing a three-year operational contract for library administrative services. The School Board has expressed its desire for a contract of a shorter duration while it weighs funding options for the library. Although the facility is a public library, which serves the city of Hancock along with three townships, because it functions also as a school library, located on the high school campus, Hancock Public Schools has the sole responsibility of funding the library.

The three-year proposal requests $83,382 for the fiscal year 2024-25, with a 5% increase each subsequent year for inflation and cost of living.

In breaking down the budget expenses, Linde-Moriarty said the largest expense is personnel costs, which account for 72.3% of the budget. Materials and Processing account for another 10.2%, while administrative costs make up another 7.7%.

“There are operational needs for running a library,” Linde-Moriarty said. “There are personnel costs, programming costs, book purchases.”

Among the reasons for the three-year proposal is that one-year renewals and their negotiations require significant time and resources to prepare for presentations, data research and compilation.

“It just gives us some breathing room, some (surety) to staff that they have a job in three months and beyond,” Linde-Moriarty said, “and it allows us more stability for planning for the future for applying for longer term grants more than a year off,” adding that there a lot of things PLDL need to consider when evaluating the opportunities that the library can pursue, and the timeline can be one of them.

Trustee Wendy Chynoweth asked if PLDL would be willing to commit to less than a three-year cycle.

Linde-Moriarty replied that she was not authorized to respond to the question, because the proposal she was presenting was from the PLDL Board; negotiations regarding contract lengths would need to be conducted between the School Board and the PLDL Board.