Jasper Library summer reading program inspired 49,000 hours of reading

“We had over 3,700 people – adults, children, and young adults who participated [in summer reading] and over 2,000 who actually completed it.” Library Director Rita Douthitt told the board at Thursday’s meeting.

Douthitt says that for every book that was read or every hour that the young adults read tickets were issued that would be used as entries for prizes. In all the four libraries issued over 49,000 tickets.

The tickets were redeemed for prizes at each branch. The prizes were supplied by the library out of the programming budget, while others were donated.

This year’s grand prize was a notebook computer donated by Matrix Integration. A library patron in Ferdinand won that prize.[hr]

The Jasper Library Board also approved advertising the budget for the upcoming fiscal year which begins in January at the meeting Thursday evening.

The tentative budget amount is $1,160,568.00 for the General Fund, with $900,000.00 in the Library Improvement Reserve Fund (LIRF) and a levy amount of $657,000.00.

Library Director Rita Douthitt said that the budget amount represents an increase of about 2.5 percent over last year’s budget.

The budget also contains a 2 percent across the board salary increase for employees of the library. The increase would go into effect January 1st.

A public hearing will be held on September 5th and the budget could be adopted at the October 10th Library Board meeting.

The Department of Local Finance will approve the budget sometime in January or February.