Fiscal Year 2025-26 Audit
During the week of November 10, our independent auditors from MMB & Co. will be onsite conducting their fieldwork for the financial audit of the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025. In preparation for the audit, Tonya Faiola, Kelly McCombs and I have been gathering information, files, and paperwork that auditors will use in their testing of our internal controls and for preparation of the audited financial statement. They anticipate completing this phase of the work by November 20, and we anticipate the possibility of have at least a draft of the audited financials by the time we begin preparation of the FY2027-28 budget in January.
Monthly Financial Reporting
Included in the packet for meetings each month are a variety of financial reports that the board approves. Because the library operates on a cash basis, these reports generally reflect income and expenditures from the library’s two primary accounts: a money market account into which all income (taxes, donations, fines and fees, rent, etc.) is deposited, and a general checking account into which funds from the money market account are transferred to pay bills.
These monthly reports include:
- Exhibit I: A summary of all prepaid expenses and new warrants (outgoing bills) requiring approval from the board for payment, with corresponding check numbers.
- Exhibit II: A Budget Report, comparing year-to-date expenditures to budgeted expenses for particular categories.
- Exhibit III: An Income Report comparing income to various estimated income sources. In addition to income, this report also includes the balances of the money market account and the checking account, as well as the total of outgoing disbursements from the monthly warrants, to provide the board with a working balance of available cash.
Beginning this month, the Income Report will include an additional item of information, which will be the recently assigned fund balance for future capital projects. While this assigned balance currently remains as part of the total balance of the money market account, for the current fiscal year, it will reduce the available cash by a total of $776,985.95.
In addition to these operational funds, the library has additional restricted funds and investments that appear as assets in the annual audited financial statement provided to the board, but generally do not appear in the monthly operation reports as liquid/spendable resources. These currently include:
- A Special Funds account at Adirondack Trust Company, with a balance of about $3,000.00, with restrictions to spend interest income on Holocaust literature.
- Two legacy CDs of $10,000 each, one with Key Bank and the other with Citizens Bank.
- The Eric Halberg Trust, income from which is restricted to the purchase of art-related materials and programming. The value of the Trust is currently about $800,000.00, with annual disbursements from the investment income requiring application to the trustees of the trust.
- The Saratoga Springs Public Library Fund at the Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region, which was initiated under the leadership of former Trustee Cheryl Gold to provide potential donors with a 501-c3 option for donations to the library for long term savings rather than immediate operational needs. This fund currently has a balance of about $250,000.00
Programming and Community Involvement
Books and Tea, the reading group that I facilitate the third Thursday of each month had a surprisingly lively discussion of Angel Down, Daniel Kraus’s unexpected Pulitzer-Prize-winning horror novel in October. The discussion follows a long-standing tradition of reading something a bit spooky and/or weird for our October gathering. The group consists primarily of retired professional women who are averse to violence in their discretionary reading, so these are sometimes challenging discussions for them.
In honor of Native American History Month, the selection for November is Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools by Mary Annette Pember.
I had a blast dressing up as Pete the Cat and passing out plush toys to all the tiny Trick-or-Treaters at the Children’s Room Halloween celebration on October 25th.
On October 28, I helped to facilitate two Positive Peace Conversations at a Rotary district training event in Binghamton.