Bloomfield Hills, Baldwin on Brink of Library Agreement

The Bloomfield Hills City Commission on Tuesday will consider a tentative agreement with the on a three-year deal for service, officials said. 

Negotiators from both entities reached the deal this week, ending roughly six months of talks that could yield library services to roughly 4,000 city residents currently without them. The tentative deal is worth $268,681 for the first year and will increase in each of the following years by 5 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less, said Baldwin Library Director Doug Koschik.

Koschik said negotiators calculated the average household cost for public library operating expenses in 2011-12 at $180.44, and then multiplied that by the number of households in the city listed in the 2010 census (1,489).

The city has sought library services since November, when residents voted against renewing the city’s contract with the Bloomfield Township Public Library. Bloomfield Hills has been without a library of its own for seven years.

According to Koschik, a contract with Bloomfield Hills — at the price set out by the library board — would allow the library to return to the full 67-hour weekly schedule. Under the 2011-12 budget plan, Baldwin will move to a 62-hour week on July 1.

“I hope that the proposed contract between Baldwin and Bloomfield Hills ends up getting approved since it will benefit both sides,” Koschik said. “Bloomfield Hills will obtain quality library services for all of its residents, while Baldwin will obtain a revenue boost that will allow it to stay open more hours, purchase more reading materials, put on additional programs and stabilize its financial situation.”

Resuming the 67-hour schedule will require an entire additional shift and cost about $175,000.

Koschik said the additional revenue will help provide:

• A larger supply of reading, viewing and listening materials, as well as electronic resources.
• Financing for additional library programs and events.
• Relief for the $100,000 deficit in the library’s operating budget.

Tuesday's vote is critical, but just the first step. A formal contract would have to be drafted and ratified by both entities, and the city would then have to calculate a millage rate that would need voter approval this November. Only then would the contract take effect.

Koschik said he expects a formal contract to be signed no later than August in order to prepare for the fall millage campaign.

Bloomfield Hills City Manager Jay Cravens deferred comment and provided a memo he prepared for commissioners Friday.

The memo states the three-year deal would provide access for city residents to Baldwin's materials and facilities on the same basis as Birmingham residents. The term residents was also expanded to include employers and employees of businesses within the city limits.

The agreement would be automatically renewed for successive two-year periods and either side could back out with six months advance notice.

"During the third year the commission could evaluate the library services provided by Baldwin and determine if they want to ask  voters for a millage renewal," he wrote.

A long process

The two sides have been sparring over shared services since January, when Cravens sent a letter to Baldwin proposing to two sides look into an agreement.

“While the recent elections demonstrated that the majority of residents were opposed to a millage-based library services contract, there are a significant number of our voters who wish to have library services,” Cravens wrote.

Baldwin’s first proposal to Bloomfield Hills — a three-year contract that would cost the city $380,000 per year — was rebuffed by the commission. Then Bloomfield Hills Mayor Michael McCready said that any contract costing more than $150,000 a year would have to be approved by voters.

According to McCready, who was replaced by Michael Zambricki as mayor last month, Bloomfield Hills residents were looking for a price similar to what is paid by Baldwin’s other contract communities — Beverly Hills ($460,000) and Bingham Farms ($99,000) .

The original proposal of $380,000 would match the per-household cost of what Birmingham residents currently pay.

Koschik said the new proposed contract agreement retained the blended household rate among Baldwin's contract communities without any capital projects.