Dunn County awards $5,000 in contingency funding for Colfax library
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
MENOMONIE — The Dunn County Community Resources and Tourism Committee has approved providing $5,000 in additional funding for the Colfax Public Library from the county’s contingency fund.
All four of Dunn County’s libraries received less funding from the county for this year, but for the Colfax Public Library, the reduction in funding was a larger percentage of the library’s overall budget for 2025, said Andrew Mercil, county clerk, at the Dunn County Community Resources and Tourism Committee’s February 18 meeting.
The Colfax library received $17,000 less in 2025 funding from Dunn County, while Menomonie received $16,000 less, Boyceville received $4,000 less and Sand Creek received $2,000 less.
While the reduction for the Colfax and the Menomonie library are similar, Colfax has a budget of about $148,000 while the Menomonie library has a budget of $1.02 million, Mercil said.
The reduction in funding for Colfax is 12 percent of the library’s budget, while the reduction for the Menomonie library represents about 2 percent of the budget.
The reduction for Boyceville amounts to about 3 percent of the budget, while the reduction for Sand Creek represents about 5 percent of the budget.
January meeting
Lisa Bragg-Hurlburt, director of the Colfax Public Library, had made an appeal to the CR&T Committee for $5,000 in additional funding from Dunn County at the committee’s January meeting.
Hurlburt has decreased the budget for library materials for 2025. State law mandates that libraries spend $2,500 on books and other materials annually, and Hurlburt budgeted $2,500 for 2025, which compares to a budget of $7,000 for 2024.
In 2023, the Colfax library budgeted $12,000 for books and materials.
The 2025 budget also includes a reduction of $4,500 for programming.
The Colfax Public Library’s budget for 2025 has other reductions as well.
As soon as it became apparent in the fall of 2024 that the Colfax library would receive $17,000 less in county funds for 2025, Hurlburt also began writing grant applications and launching fund raisers to try to make up for some of the difference.
The remaining deficit was $5,000.
County clerk
The Dunn County Clerk is responsible for disbursing county funds to the libraries in Dunn County, and the CR&T Committee gave Mercil the task of providing them with more information about library funding for the February meeting.
While state law requires counties to provide 70 percent of the funding for county residents who live outside of the municipality and use the municipality’s library, Dunn County has historically provided 100 percent of that funding.
State law also requires counties to provide funding for people who live outside of the county for using another county’s library.
For example, people who live in Dunn County also use the libraries in Eau Claire County and Chippewa County, and Dunn County provides 70 percent of the funding to other counties for that usage.
Funding formula
County funding for libraries is based on a formula, and the formula is applied to circulation from two years prior, Mercil told the CR&T Committee.
The funding for 2025 is based on circulation in 2023. In 2024, the libraries reported the usage for 2023, and that is the number used to calculate the funding for 2025, he explained.
The cost per item circulated is based on the number of items checked out from the library and the library’s budget, Mercil said.
A decrease in the cost per items circulated, combined with a decrease in county residents using the Colfax library, resulted in a $17,000 reduction in county funding for the Colfax library, he said.
Hurlburt also has reported that the number of residents in the Village of Colfax using the Colfax library has increased.
The Colfax Village Board was not anticipating the reduction in funding for the library from Dunn County and did not increase funding in 2025 for the library to make up the difference.
For 2023, the Colfax library’s budget of $147,737 received funding from Dunn County of $76,700.
The Boyceville library had a budget of $141,000 and received $77,307 from Dunn County.
The Menomonie library had a budget of $1.02 million and received $499,069 from Dunn County.
The Sand Creek library had a budget of $38,512 and received $16,109 from Dunn County.
All together, Dunn County paid $799,000 in funding for libraries across the state to account for Dunn County residents using libraries, Mercil said.
Residents who live in municipalities with a library typically do not pay the county’s library property tax levy so that they are not taxed twice for the library, he noted.
Earlier
The CR&T Committee begins reviewing funding for “outside agencies” such as the county’s libraries in June, Mercil said.
The committee could have addressed the problem with library funding with more information earlier in the 2025 budget process, he said.
Mercil pledged to provide a year-over-year report on library funding for the CR&T Committee in June so the committee can be more prepared to anticipate any problems such as the problem in funding facing the Colfax library.
Other services
Luisa Gerasimo, the human development and relationship educator with Extension Dunn County, noted that in addition to checking out books and other materials, libraries provide social services, such as assistance to patrons in using the internet, filling out on-line forms and in showing older residents how to use their cell phones.
Hurlburt had provided a list to the CR&T Committee at the January meeting of 25 things the Colfax library does for the community in addition to checking out books and other materials.
Dunn County funds the traditional check-out of books and materials, so perhaps the CR&T committee could pro-actively help with other funding, noted Spencer Berndt, county board supervisor and a member of the CR&T Committee.
Dunn County provides 100 percent of the funding for the circulation costs, and it would be up to the CR&T Committee to fund libraries beyond that, Mercil said.
The CR&T Committee should look at ways to help fund the additional services that libraries provide, Berndt said.
Mercil noted the Menomonie library has hotspots available for checkout for people who do not have good internet access at home and that library patrons in Sand Creek can check out a pressure cooker so they can preserve fruits and vegetables.
Contingency
The CR&T Committee had been provided with a resolution for a budget amendment to fund the additional $5,000 for the Colfax library.
A budget amendment would amend the county’s budget by $5,000 and would then take the money out of the undesignated general fund.
CR&T Committee members ultimately decided to amend the motion to recommend a budget adjustment to instead use $5,000 from the county’s $125,000 contingency fund.
A budget adjustment requires a vote from the Dunn County Board, said Tom Quinn, county board supervisor and a member of the CR&T Committee.
Library funding is complicated, and the entire presentation on library funding would have to be given to the Dunn County Board so that all of the board members could understand why a budget amendment was being proposed, he said.
About $45,000 was not used from the contingency fund in 2024 and was returned to the undesignated general fund.
The Dunn County Community Resources and Tourism Committee voted unanimously to provide an additional $5,000 in funding to the Colfax Public Library from the county’s contingency fund.
