ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels met with staff last week for a frank assessment of the financial outlook for the Association. On everyone’s mind was what the recession means to libraries and how it will affect our work at ALA.
Fiels indicated that information on ALA’s year-end performance for 2009 and updated 2010 projections will not be available until October, when final close adjustments have been made and following the fall meetings of the Budget Analysis and Review Committee and the Executive Board. With regard to the FY2010 budget (which began September 1), Fiels said that expense reductions would be made as needed if revenue projections must be lowered. Among the reductions that are already planned for FY2010 is the elimination of a planned 1% compensation increase. If those cuts are not enough, Fiels said, management will need to look at further expense reductions that may include furloughs.
Not only has ALA management been reducing expenses, Fiels said, it has also been watching how other associations are faring through what is becoming known as the Great Recession. “We’re doing better than many,” he said. “We are not talking about salary reductions,” as others have, he pointed out. The Chicago Annual Conference in July was a real success, and ALA membership is “holding strong” with a drop of only 2.5% this last year, far smaller than many other associations.
While the final close of the FY2009 budget has not yet occurred, Fiels noted that he expects it to be “very close” (despite the $3 million shortfall projected in February) because of the expense reductions undertaken in March. The fact that they had to be implemented half-way through the year is a testimony, he said, to the feverish pace and enthusiasm demonstrated by ALA staff. “I think that this is good news,” he said, “given that the economy was in free fall.”
The only really bad news in Fiels’s report was the fact that, while the nation’s economy is showing signs of recovery, libraries will lag by a year or two or more. ALA is monitoring the situation across the country (he cited Ohio, California, Pennsylvania, and Michigan as examples of states where major budget cuts had been proposed and/or implemented). “The main reason we are here,” he told staff, “is to help our members and libraries with the challenges they face.”